BIRTHRIGHT 


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"Yes,  Cissie,  I  understand  now' 


BIRTHRI0H 

A  NOVEL 


BY 

T.  S.  STRIBLING 


f  UuatrateD  big 

If.  Xut0  fiDora 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1922 


••  •  •  ;•  • .• ; 
•••  •  ••  •  ♦•• ,  , 

•  •••  ••••• 


5916 

be 


COPTBiaHT,    1921,    1922,    BT 

The  Centuby  Co. 


PBINTKD   IN  U.   S.   A. 


TO  MY  MOTHER 
AMELIA  WAITS  STRIBLING 


50463'; 


o 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

"Yes,  Cissie,  I  understand  now"      ....     Frontispiece 


FACINa 
PAQBl 


Peter  recognized  the  white  aprons  and  the  swords  and 

spears  of  the  Knights  and  Ladies  of  Tabor  .      .      .     i8 

Up  and  down  its  street  flows  the  slow  negro  life  of  the 

village 28 

In  the  Siner  cabin  old  Caroline  Siner  berated  her  boy  .     68 

The  old  gentleman  turned  around  at  last 112 

"You-you    mean    you    want    m-me — ^to    go    with    you, 

Cissie?"  he  stammered 230 

"Naw  yuh  don't,"  he  warned  sharply.     "You  turn  roun' 

an'  march  on  to  Niggertown" 272 

The  bridal  couple  embarked  for  Cairo 302 


c     «    ..     .        t 


BIRTHRIGHT 


BIRTHRIGHT 


CHAPTER  I 

AT  Cairo,  Illinois,  the  Pullman-car  conductor  asked 
Peter  Siner  to  take  his  suitcase  and  traveling-bag 
and  pass  forward  into  the  Jim  Crow  car.  The  request 
came  as  a  sort  of  surprise  to  the  negro.  During  Pfeter 
Siner's  four  years  in  Harvard  the  segregation  of  black 
folk  on  Southern  railroads  had  become  blurred  and 
reminiscent  in  his  mind ;  now  it  was  fetched  back  into 
the  sharp  distinction  of  the  present  instant.  With  a 
certain  sense  of  strangeness,  Siner  picked  up  his  bags, 
and  saw  his  own  form,  in  the  car  mirrors,  walking 
down  the  length  of  the  sleeper.  He  moved  on  through 
the  dining-car,  where  a  few  hours  before  he  had  had 
dinner  and  talked  with  two  white  men,  one  an  Oregon 
apple-grower,  the  other  a  Wisconsin  paper-manufac- 
turer. The  Wisconsin  man  had  furnished  cigars,  and 
the  three  had  sat  and  smoked  in  the  drawing-room, 
indeed,  had  discussed  this  very  point ;  and  now  it  was 
upon  him. 

At  the  door  of  the  dining-car  stood  the  porter  of  his 
Pullman,  a  negro  like  himself,  and  Peter  mechanically 
gave  him  fifty  cents.     The  porter  accepted  it  silently, 


/4: :  .•: :;:  :••.•;: :    :  BIRTHRIGHT 

without  offering  the  amenities  of  his  whisk-broom  and 
shoe-brush,  and  Peter  passed  on  forward. 

Beyond  the  dining-car  and  Pullmans  stretched  twelve 
day-coaches  filled  with  less-opulent  white  travelers  in 
all  degrees  of  sleepiness  and  dishabille  from  having 
sat  up  all  night.  The  thirteenth  coach  was  the 
Jim  Crow  car.  Framed  in  a  conspicuous  place  beside 
the  entrance  of  the  car  was  a  copy  of  the  Kentucky 
state  ordinance  setting  this  coach  apart  from  the  re- 
mainder of  the  train  for  the  purposes  therein  provided. 

The  Jim  Crow  car  was  not  exactly  shabby,  but  it 
was  unkept.  It  was  half  filled  with  travelers  of 
Peter's  own  color,  and  these  passengers  were  rather 
more  noisy  than  those  in  the  white  coaches.  Conversa- 
tion was  not  restrained  to  the  undertones  one  heard  in 
the  other  day-coaches  or  the  Pullmans.  Near  the 
entrance  of  the  car  two  negroes  in  soldiers'  uniforms 
had  turned  a  seat  over  to  face  the  door,  and  now  they 
sat  talking  loudly  and  laughing  the  loose  laugh  of  the 
half  intoxicated  as  they  watched  the  inflow  of  negro 
passengers  coming  out  of  the  white  cars. 

The  windows  of  the  Jim  Crow  car  were  shut,  and 
already  it  had  become  noisome.  The  close  air  was 
faintly  barbed  with  the  peculiar,  penetrating  odor  of 
dark,  sweating  skins.  For  four  years  Peter  Siner  had 
not  known  that  odor.  Now  it  came  to  him  not  so 
much  offensively  as  with  a  queer  quality  of  intimacy 
and  reminiscence.     The  tall,  carefully  tailored  negro 


BIRTHRIGHT  5 

spread  his  wide  nostrils,  vacillating  whether  to  sniff 
it  out  with  disfavor  or  to  admit  it  for  the  sudden 
mental  associations  it  evoked. 

It  was  a  faint,  pungent  smell  that  played  in  the  back 
of  his  nose  and  somehow  reminded  him  of  his  mother, 
Caroline  Siner,  a  thick-bodied  black  woman  whom  he 
remembered  as  always  bending  over  a  wash-tub.  This 
was  only  one  unit  of  a  complex.  The  odor  was  also 
connected  with  negro  protracted  meetings  in  Hooker's 
Bend,  and  the  Harvard  man  remembered  a  lanky  black 
preacher  waving  long  arms  and  wailing  of  hell-fire,  to 
the  chanted  groans  of  his  dark  congregation;  and  he, 
Peter  Siner,  had  groaned  with  the  others.  Peter  had 
known  this  odor  in  the  press-room  of  Tennessee  cotton- 
gins,  over  a  river  packet's  boilers,  where  he  and  other 
roustabouts  were  bedded,  in  bunk-houses  in  the  woods. 
It  also  recalled  a  certain  octoroon  girl  named  Ida  May, 
and  an  intimacy  with  her  which  it  still  moved  and  sad- 
dened Peter  to  think  of.  Indeed,  it  resurrected  in- 
numerable vignettes  of  his  life  in  the  negro  village  in 
Hooker's  Bend;  it  was  linked  with  innumerable  emo- 
tions, this  pungent,  unforgetable  odor  that  filled  the 
Jim  Crow  car. 

Somehow  the  odor  had  a  queer  effect  of  appearing  to 
push  his  conversation  with  the  two  white  Northern 
men  in  the  drawing-room  back  to  a  distance,  an  inde- 
finable distance  of  both  space  and  time. 

The  negro  put  his  suitcase  under  the  seat,  hung  his 


6  BIRTHRIGHT  ' 

overcoat  on  the  hook,  and  placed  his  hand-bag  in  the 
rack  overhead;  then  with  some  difficuhy  he  opened  a 
window  and  sat  down  by  it. 

A  stir  of  travelers  in  the  Cairo  station  drifted  into 
the  car.  Against  a  broad  murmur  of  hurrying  feet, 
moving  trucks,  and  talking  there  stood  out  the  thin,  flat 
voice  of  a  Southern  white  girl  calling  good-by  to  some 
one  on  the  train.  Peter  could  see  her  waving  a  bright 
parasol  and  tiptoeing.  A  sandwich  boy  hurried  past, 
shrilling  his  w^ares.  Siner  leaned  out,  with  fifteen 
cents,  and  signaled  to  him.  The  urchin  hesitated,  and 
was  about  to  reach  up  one  of  his  wrapped  parcels,  when 
a  peremptory  voice  shouted  at  him  from  a  lower  car. 
With  a  sort  of  start  the  lad  deserted  Siner  and  went 
trotting  down  to  his  white  customer.  A  moment  later 
the  train  bell  began  ringing,  and  the  Dixie  Flier  puffed 
deliberately  out  of  the  Cairo  station  and  moved  across 
the  Ohio  bridge  into  the  South. 

Half  an  hour  later  the  blue-grass  fields  of  Kentucky 
were  spinning  outside  of  the  window  in  a  vast  green 
whirlpool.  The  distant  trees  and  houses  moved  for- 
ward with  the  train,  while  the  foreground,  with  its 
telegraph  poles,  its  culverts,  section-houses,  and  shrub- 
bery, rushed  backward  in  a  blur.  Now  and  then  into 
the  Jim  Crow  window  whipped  a  blast  of  coal  smoke 
and  hot  cinders,  for  the  engine  was  only  two  cars  ahead. 

Peter  Siner  looked  out  at  the  interminable  spin  of 
the  landscape  with  a  certain  wistfulness.  He  was 
coming  back  into  the  South,  into  his  own  country. 


BIRTHRIGHT  7 

Here  for  generations  his  forebears  had  toiled  endlessly 
and  fruitlessly,  yet  the  fat  green  fields  hurtling  past 
him  told  with  what  skill  and  patience  their  black  hands 
had  labored. 

The  negro  shrugged  away  such  thoughts,  and  with 
a  certain  effort  replaced  them  with  the  constructive 
idea  that  was  bringing  him  South  once  more.  It  was 
a  very  simple  idea.  Siner  was  returning  to  his  native 
village  in  Tennessee  to  teach  school.  He  planned  to 
begin  his  work  with  the  ordinary  public  school  at 
Hooker's  Bend,  but,  in  the  back  of  his  head,  he  hoped 
eventually  to  develop  an  institution  after  the  plan  of 
Tuskeegee  or  the  Hampton  Institute  in  Virginia. 

To  do  what  he  had  in  mind,  he  must  obtain  aid  from 
white  sources,  and  now,  as  he  traveled  southward,  he 
began  conning  in  his  mind  the  white  men  and  white 
women  he  knew  in  Hooker's  Bend.  He  wanted  first 
of  all  to  secure  possession  of  a  small  tract  of  land 
which  he  knew  adjoined  the  negro  school-house  over 
on  the  east  side  of  the  village. 

Before  the  negro's  mind  the  different  villagers  passed 
in  review  with  that  peculiar  intimacy  of  vision  that 
servants  always  have  of  their  masters.  Indeed,  no 
white  Southerner  knows  his  own  village  so  minutely  as 
does  any  member  of  its  colored  population.  The 
colored  villagers  see  the  whites  off  their  guard  and 
just  as  they  are,  and  that  is  an  attitude  in  which  no 
one  looks  his  best.  The  negroes  might  be  called  the 
black  recording  angels  of  the  South.     If  what  they 


8  BIRTHRIGHT 

know  should  be  shouted  aloud  in  any  Southern  town, 
its  social  life  would  disintegrate.  Yet  it  is  a  strange 
fact  that  gossip  seldom  penetrates  from  the  one  race 
to  the  other. 

So  Peter  Siner  sat  in  the  Jim  Crow  car  musing  over 
half  a  dozen  villagers  in  Hooker's  Bend.  He  thought 
of  them  in  a  curious  way.  Although  he  was  now  a 
B.  A.  of  Harvard  University,  and  although  he  knew 
that  not  a  soul  in  the  little  river  village,  unless  it  was 
old  Captain  Renfrew,  could  construe  a  line  of  Greek 
and  that  scarcely  two  had  ever  traveled  farther  north 
than  Cincinnati,  still,  as  Peter  recalled  their  names  and 
foibles,  he  involuntarily  felt  that  he  was  telling  over  a 
roll  of  the  mighty.  The  white  villagers  came  marching 
through  his  mind  as  beings  austere,  and  the  very  cranks 
and  quirks  of  their  characters  somehow  held  that  aus- 
terity. There  were  the  Brownell  sisters,  two  old 
maids,  Molly  and  Patti,  who  lived  in  a  big  brick  house 
on  the  hill.  Peter  remembered  that  Miss  Molly  Brow- 
nell always  doled  out  to  his  mother,  at  Monday's  wash- 
day dinner,  exactly  one  biscuit  less  than  the  old  negress 
wanted  to  eat,  and  she  always  paid  her  in  old  clothes. 
Peter  remembered,  a  dozen  times  in  his  life,  his  mother 
coming  home  and  wondering  in  an  impersonal  way  how 
it  was  that  Miss  Molly  Brownell  could  skimp  every 
meal  she  ate  at  the  big  house  by  exactly  one  biscuit. 
It  was  Miss  Brownell's  thin-lipped  boast  that  she 
understood  negroes.  She  had  told  Peter  so  several 
times  when,  as  a  lad,  he  went  up  to  the  big  house  on 


BIRTHRIGHT  9 

errands.  Peter  Siner  considered  this  remembrance 
without  the  faintest  feeling  of  humor,  and  mentally  re- 
moved Miss  Molly  Brownell  from  his  list  of  possible 
subscribers.  Yet,  he  recalled,  the  whole  Brownell 
estate  had  been  reared  on  negro  labor. 

Then  there  was  Henry  Hooker,  cashier  of  the 
village  bank.  P'eter  knew  that  the  banker  subscribed 
liberally  to  foreign  missions;  indeed,  at  the  cashier's 
behest,  the  white  church  of  Hooker's  Bend  kept  a  paid! 
missionary  on  the  upper  Congo.  But  the  banker  hadj 
sold  some  village  lots  to  the  negroes,  and  in  two  in- 
stances, where  a  streak  of  commercial  phosphate  had 
been  discovered  on  the  properties,  the  lots  had  reverted 
to  the  Hooker  estate.  There  had  been  in  the  deed 
something  concerning  a  mineral  reservation  that  the 
negro  purchasers  knew  nothing  about  until  the  phos- 
phate was  discovered.  The  whole  matter  had  been 
perfectly  legal. 

A  hand  shook  Siner's  shoulder  and  interrupted  his 
review.  Peter  turned,  and  caught  an  alcoholic  breath 
over  his  shoulder,  and  the  blurred  voice  of  a  Southern 
negro  called  out  above  the  rumble  of  the  car  and  the 
roar  of  the  engine : 

"  To'  Gawd,  ef  dis  ain't  Peter  Siner  I 's  been  lookin' 
at  de  las*  twenty  miles,  an'  not  knowin'  him  wid  sich 
skeniptious  clo'es  on!     Wha  you  fum,  nigger?" 

Siner  took  the  enthusiastic  hand  offered  him  and 
studied  the  heavily  set,  powerful  man  bending  over 
the  seat.     He  was  in  a  soldier's  uniform,  and  his  broad 


lo  BIRTHRIGHT 

nutmeg-colored  face  and  hot  black  eyes  brought  Peter 
a  vague  sense  of  familiarity ;  but  he  never  would  have 
identified  his  impression  had  he  not  observed  on  the 
breast  of  the  soldier's  uniform  the  Congressional  mili- 
tary medal  for  bravery  on  the  field  of  battle.  Its  glint 
furnished  Peter  the  necessary  clew.  He  remembered 
his  mother's  writing  him  something  about  Tump  Pack 
going  to  France  and  getting  "crowned"  before  the 
army.  He  had  puzzled  a  long  time  over  what  she 
meant  by  "crowned"  before  he  guessed  her  meaning. 
Now  the  medal  aided  Peter  in  reconstructing  out  of 
this  big  umber-colored  giant  the  rather  spindling  Tump 
Pack  he  had  known  in  Hooker's  Bend. 

Siner  was  greatly  surprised,  and  his  heart  warmed 
at  the  sight  of  his  old  playmate. 

"What  have  you  been  doing  to  yourself,  Tump?" 
he  cried,  laughing,  and  shaking  the  big  hand  in  sudden 
warmth.  "You  used  to  be  the  size  of  a  dime  in  a 
jewelry  store." 

"Been  in  'e  army,  nigger,  wha  I 's  been  fed,"  said 
the  grinning  brown  man,  delightedly.  "I  sho  is  picked 
up,  ain't  I  ?" 

"And  what  are  you  doing  here  in  Cairo  ?" 

"Tryin'  to  bridle  a  HI  white  mule."  Mr.  Pack 
winked  a  whisky-brightened  eye  jovially  and  touched 
his  coat  to  indicate  that  some  of  the  "white  mule"  was 
in  his  pocket  and  had  not  been  drunk. 

"How  'd  you  get  here  ?" 

"Wucked  my  way  down  on  de  St.  Louis  packet  an* 


BIRTHRIGHT  ii 

got  paid  off  at  Pad  jo  [Paducah,  Kentucky]  ;  'n  'en  I 
thought  I  'd  come  on  down  heah  an'  roll  some  bones. 
Been  hittin'  'em  two  days  now,  an'  I  sho  come  putty 
nigh  bein'  cleaned;  but  I  put  up  HI  Joe  heah,  an'  won 
'em  all  back,  'n  'en  some."  He  touched  the  medal 
on  his  coat,  winked  again,  slapped  Siner  on  the  leg, 
and  burst  into  loud  laughter. 

Peter  was  momentarily  shocked.  He  made  a  place 
on  the  seat  for  his  friend  to  sit.  "You  don't  mean  you 
put  up  your  medal  on  a  crap  game.  Tump?" 

"Sho  do,  black  man."  Pack  became  soberer. 
"Dat  's  one  o'  de  great  benefits  o'  bein'  dec' rated.  Dey 
ain't  a  son  uv  a  gun  on  de  river  whut  kin  win  lil  Joe ; 
dey  all  tried  it." 

A  moment's  reflection  told  Peter  how  simple  and 
natural  it  was  for  Pack  to  prize  his  military  medal  as 
a  good-luck  piece  to  be  used  as  a  last  resort  in  crap 
games.  He  watched  Tump  stroke  the  face  of  his 
medal  with  his  fingers. 

"My  mother  wrote  me  about  your  getting  it.  Tump. 
I  was  glad  to  hear  it." 

The  brown  man  nodded,  and  stared  down  at  the 
bit  of  gold  on  his  barrel-like  chest. 

"Yas-suh,  dat  'uz  guv  to  me  fuh  bravery.  You 
know  whut  a  skeery  lil  nigger  I  wuz  roun'  Hooker's 
Ben' ;  well,  de  sahgeant  tuk  me  an'  he  drill  ever'  bit  o' 
dat  right  out  'n  me.  He  gimme  a  baynit  an'  learned 
me  to  stob  dummies  wid  it  over  at  Camp  Oglethorpe, 
ontil  he  felt  lak  I  had  de  heart  to  stob  anything ;  'n'  'en 


12  BIRTHRIGHT 

he  sont  me  acrost.  I  had  to  git  a  new  pair  breeches 
ever'  three  weeks,  I  growed  so  fas'."  Here  he  broke 
out  into  his  big  loose  laugh  again,  and  renewed  the 
alcoholic  scent  around  Peter. 

"And  you  made  good  ?" 

"Sho  did,  black  man,  an',  'fo'  Gawd,  I  'serve  a  medal 
ef  any  man  ever  did.  Dey  gimme  dish-heah  fuh 
stobbin  fo'  white  men  wid  a  baynit.  'Fo'  Gawd,  nig- 
ger, I  never  felt  so  quare  in  all  my  born  days  as  when 
I  wuz  a-jobbin'  de  livers  o'  dem  white  men  lak  de 
sahgeant  tol'  me  to."  Tump  shook  his  head,  be- 
wildered, and  after  a  moment  added,  "Yas-suh,  I 
never  wuz  mo'  surprised  in  all  my  life  dan  when  I  got 
dis  medal  fuh  stobbin'  fo'  white  men." 

Peter  Siner  looked  through  the  Jim  Crow  window  at 
the  vast  rotation  of  the  Kentucky  landscape  on  which 
his  forebears  had  toiled;  presently  he  added  soberly: 

"You  were  fighting  for  your  country,  Tump.  It 
was  war  then;  you  were  fighting  for  your  country." 

At  Jackson,  Tennessee,  the  two  negroes  were  forced 
to  spend  the  night  between  trains.  Tump  Pack  piloted 
Peter  Siner  to  a  negro  cafe  where  they  could  eat,  and  A 
later  they  searched  out  a  negro  lodging-house  on  Gate 
Street  where  they  could  sleep.  It  was  a  grimy,  smelly 
place,  with  its  own  odor  spiked  by  a  phosphate-reduc- 
ing plant  two  blocks  distant.  The  paper  on  the  wall 
of  the  room  Peter  slept  in  looked  scrofulous.  There 
was  no  window,  and  Peter's   four-years  regime  of 


BIRTHRIGHT  13 

open  windows  and  fresh-air  sleep  was  broken.  He 
arranged  his  clothing  for  the  night  so  it  would  come 
in  contact  with  nothing  in  the  room  but  a  chair  back. 
He  felt  dull  next  morning,  and  could  not  bring  himself 
either  to  shave  or  bathe  in  the  place,  but  got  out  and 
hunted  up  a  negro  barber-shop  furnished  vrith  one 
greasy  red-plush  barber-chair. 

A  few  hours  later  the  two  negroes  journeyed  on 
down  to  Perryville,  Tennessee,  a  village  on  the  Ten- 
nessee River  where  they  took  a  gasolene  launch  up  to 
Hooker's  Bend.  The  launch  was  about  fifty  feet  long 
and  had  two  cabins,  a  colored  cabin  in  front  of,  and  a 
white  cabin  behind,  the  engine-room. 

This  unremitting  insistence  on  his  color,  this  con- 
tinual shunting  him  into  obscure  and  filthy  ways, 
gradually  gave  Peter  a  loathly  sensation.  It  increased 
the  unwashed  feeling  that  followed  his  lack  of  a  morn- 
ing bath.  The  impression  grew  upon  him  that  he  was 
being  handled  with  tongs,  along  back-alley  routes ;  that 
he  and  his  race  were  something  to  be  kept  out  of 
sight  as  much  as  possible,  as  careful  housekeepers 
manceuver  their  slops. 

At  Perryville  a  number  of  passengers  boarded  the 
up-river  boat ;  two  or  three  drummers ;  a  yellowed  old 
hill  woman  returning  to  her  Wayne  County  home;  a 
red-headed  peanut-buyer;  a  well-groomed  white  girl 
in  a  tailor  suit ;  a  youngish  man  barely  on  the  right  side 
of  middle  age  who  seemed  to  be  attending  her;  and 
some  negro  girls  with  lunches.     The  passengers  trailed 


14  BIRTHRIGHT 

from  the  railroad  station  down  the  river  bank  through 
a  slush  of  mud,  for  the  river  had  just  fallen  and  had 
left  a  layer  of  liquid  mud  to  a  height  of  about  twenty 
feet  all  along  the  littoral.  The  passengers  picked  their 
way  down  carefully,  stepping  into  one  another's  tracks 
in  the  effort  not  to  ruin  their  shoes.  The  drummers 
grumbled.  The  youngish  man  piloted  the  girl  down, 
holding  her  hand,  although  both  could  have  managed 
better  by  themselves. 

Following  the  passengers  came  the  trunks  and  grips 
on  a  truck.  A  negro  deck-hand,  the  truck-driver,  and 
the  white  master  of  the  launch  shoved  aboard  the  big 
sample  trunks  of  the  drummers  with  grunts,  profanity, 
and  much  stamping  of  mud.  Presently,  without  the 
formality  of  bell  or  whistle,  the  launch  clacked  away 
from  the  landing  and  stood  up  the  wide,  muddy  river. 

The  river  itself  was  monotonous  and  depressing.  It 
was  perhaps  half  a  mile  wide,  with  flat,  willowed  mud 
banks  on  one  side  and  low  shelves  of  stratified  lime- 
stone on  the  other. 

Trading-points  lay  at  ten-  or  fifteen-mile  intervals 
along  the  great  waterway.  The  typical  landing  was  a 
dilapidated  shed  of  a  store  half  covered  with  tin 
tobacco  signs  and  ancient  circus  posters.  Usually,  only 
one  man  met  the  launch  at  each  landing,  the  merchant, 
a  democrat  in  his  shirt-sleeves  and  without  a  tie.  His 
voice  was  always  a  flat,  weary  drawl,  but  his  eyes, 
wrinkled  against  the  sun,  usually  held  the  shrewdness 
of  those  who  make  their  living  out  of  two-penny  trades. 


BIRTHRIGHT  15 

At  each  place  the  red-headed  peanut-buyer  slogged 
up  the  muddy  bank  and  bargained  for  the  merchant's 
peanuts,  to  be  shipped  on  the  down-river  trip  of  the 
fifst  St.  Louis  packet.  The  loneliness  of  the  scene 
embraced  the  trading-points,  the  river,  and  the  little 
gasolene  launch  struggling  against  the  muddy  current. 
It  permeated  the  passengers,  and  was  a  finishing 
touch  to  Peter  Siner's  melancholy. 

The  launch  clacked  on  and  on  interminably.  Some- 
times it  seemed  to  make  no  headway  at  all  against  the 
heavy,  silty  current.  Tump  Pack,  the  white  captain, 
and  the  negro  engineer  began  a  game  of  craps  in  the 
negro  cabin.  Presently,  two  of  the  white  drummers 
came  in  from  the  white  cabin  and  began  betting  on  the 
throws.  The  game  was  listless.  The  master  of  the 
launch  pointed  out  places  along  the  shores  where  wild- 
cat stills  were  located.  The  crap-shooters,  negro  and 
white,  squatted  in  a  circle  on  the  cabin  floor,  snapping 
their  fingers  and  calling  their  points  monotonously. 
One  of  the  negro  girls  in  the  negro  cabin  took  an  apple 
out  of  her  lunch  sack  and  began  eating  it,  holding  it 
in  her  palm  after  the  fashion  of  negroes  rather  than 
in  her  fingers,  as  is  the  custom  of  white  women. 

Both  doors  of  the  engine-room  were  open,  and  Peter 
Siner  could  see  through  into  the  white  cabin.  The  old 
hill  woman  was  dozing  in  her  chair,  her  bonnet  bobbing 
to  each  stroke  of  the  engines.  The  youngish  man  and 
the  girl  were  engaged  in  some  sort  of  intimate  lovers* 
dispute.     When  the  engines  stopped  at  one  of  the  land- 


i6  BIRTHRIGHT 

ings,  Peter  discovered  she  was;  trying  to  pay  him  what 
he  had  spent  on  getting  her  baggage  trucked  down  at 
Perryville.  The  girl  kept  pressing  a  bill  into  the  man's 
hand,  and  he  avoided  receiving  the  money.  They  kept 
up  the  play  for  sake  of  occasional  contacts. 

When  the  launch  came  in  sight  of  Hooker's  Bend 
toward  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  Peter  Siner  ex- 
perienced one  of  the  profoundest  surprises  of  his  life. 
Somehow,  all  through  his  college  days  he  had  remem- 
bered Hooker's  Bend  as  a  proud  town  with  important 
stores  and  unapproachable  white  residences.  Now  he 
saw  a  skum  of  negro  cabins,  high  piles  of  lumber,  a 
sawmill,  and  an  ice- factory.  Behind  that,  on  a  little 
rise,  stood  the  old  Brownell  manor,  maintaining  a  cer- 
tain shabby  dignity  in  a  grove  of  oaks.  Behind  and 
westward  from  the  negro  shacks  and  lumber-piles 
ranged  the  village  stores,  their  roofs  just  visible  over 
the  top  of  the  bank.  Moored  to  the  shore,  lay  the 
wharf-boat  in  weathered  greens  and  yellows.  As  a 
background  for  the  whole  scene  rose  the  dark-green 
height  of  what  was  called  the  "Big  Hill,"  an  eminence 
that  separated  the  negro  village  on  the  east  from  the 
white  village  on  the  west.  The  hill  itself  held  no 
houses,  but  appeared  a  solid  green-black  with  cedars. 

The  ensemble  was  merely  another  lonely  spot  on  the 
south  bank  of  the  great  somnolent  river.  It  looked 
dead,  deserted,  a  typical  river  town,  unprodded  even 
by  the  hoot  of  a  jerk-water  railroad. 

As  the  launch  chortled  toward  the  wharf,  Peter  Siner 


BIRTHRIGHT  I'j 

stood  trying  to  orient  himself  to  this  unexpected  and 
amazing  minifying  of  Hooker's  Bend.  He  had  left  a 
metropolis ;  he  was  coming  back  to  a  tumble-down  vil- 
lage. Yet  nothing  was  changed.  Even  the  two 
scraggly  locust-trees  that  clung  perilously  to  the  brink 
of  the  river  bank  still  held  their  toe-hold  among  the 
strata  of  limestone. 

The  negro  deck-hand  came  out  and  pumped  the  hand- 
power  whistle  in  three  long  discordant  blasts.  Then  a 
queer  thing  happened.  The  whistle  was  answered  by 
a  faint  strain  of  music.  A  little  later  the  passengers 
saw  a  line  of  negroes  come  marching  down  the  river 
bank  to  the  wharf-boat.  They  marched  in  military 
order,  and  from  afar  Peter  recognized  the  white  aprons 
and  the  swords  and  spears,  pf  the  Knights  and  Ladies 
of  Tabor,  a  colored  burial  association. 

Siner  wondered  what  had  brought  out  the  Knights 
and  Ladies  of  Tabor.  The  singing  and  the  drumming 
gradually  grew  upon  the  air.  The  passengers  in  the 
white  cabin  came  out  on  the  guards  at  this  unexpected 
fanfare.  As  soon  as  the  white  travelers  saw  the  march- 
ing negroes,  they  began  joking  about  what  caused  the 
demonstration.  The  captain  of  the  launch  thought  he 
knew,  and  began  an  oath,  but  stopped  it  out  of  defer- 
ence to  the  girl  in  the  tailor  suit.  He  said  it  was  a  dead 
nigger  the  society  was  going  to  ship  up  to  Savannah. 

The  girl  in  the  tailor  suit  was  much  amused.  She 
said  the  darkies  looked  like  a  string  of  caricatures 
marching  down  the  river  bank,     Peter  noticed  her 


i8  BIRTHRIGHT 

Northern  accent,  and  fancied  she  was  coming  to 
Hooker's  Bend  to  teach  school. 

One  of  the  drummers  turned  to  another. 

"Did  you  ever  hear  Bob  Taylor's  yarn  about  Uncle 
'Rastus's  funeral?  Funniest  thing  Bob  ever  got  off." 
He  proceeded  to  tell  it. 

Every  one  on  the  launch  was  laughing  except  the 
captain,  who  was  swearing  quietly;  but  the  line  of 
negroes  marched  on  down  to  the  wharf -boat  with  the 
unshakable  dignity  of  black  folk  in  an  important  posi- 
tion. They  came  singing  an  old  negro  spiritual.  The 
women's  sopranos  thrilled  up  in  high,  weird  phrasing 
against  an  organ-like  background  of  male  voices. 

But  the  black  men  carried  no  coffin,  and  suddenly  it 
occurred  to  Peter  Siner  that  perhaps  this  celebration 
was  given  in  honor  of  his  own  home-coming.  The 
mulatto's  heart  beat  a  trifle  faster  as  he  began  planning 
a  suitable  response  to  this  ovation. 

Sure  enough,  the  singing  ranks  disappeared  behind 
the  wharf-boat,  and  a  minute  later  came  marching 
around  the  stern  and  lined  up  on  the  outer  guard  of 
the  vessel.  The  skinny,  grizzly-headed  negro  com- 
mander held  up  his  sword,  and  the  Knights  and  Ladies 
of  Tabor  fell  silent. 

The  master  of  the  launch  tossed  his  head-line  to  the 
wharf-boat,  and  yelled  for  one  of  the  negroes  to  make 
it  fast."  One  did.  Then  the  commandant  with  the 
sword  began  his  address,  but  it  was  not  directed  to 
Peter.     He  said: 


Peter   recognized   the  white  aprons   and  the  swords   and   spears 
of  the  Knights  and  Ladies  of  Tabor 


BIRTHRIGHT  19 

**Brudder  Tump  Pack,  we,  de  Hooker*s  Ben'  lodge 
uv  de  Knights  an'  Ladies  uv  Tabor,  welcome  you  back 
to  yo'  native  town.  We  is  proud  uv  you,  a  colored 
man,  who  brings  back  de  highes'  crown  uv  bravery 
dis  Newnighted  States  has  in  its  power  to  bestow. 

*'Two  yeahs  ago,  Brudder  Tump,  we  seen  you 
marchin'  away  fum  Hooker's  Ben'  wid  thirteen  udder 
boys,  white  an'  colored,  all  marchin'  away  togedder. 
Fo'  uv  them  boys  is  already  back  home;  three,  we 
heah,  is  on  de  way  back,  but  six  uv  yo'  brave  com- 
rades, Brudder  Pack,  is  sleepin'  now  in  France,  an' 
ain't  never  goin'  to  come  home  no  mo'.  When  we 
honors  you,  we  honors,  them  all,  de  libin'  an'  de  daid, 
de  white  an'  de  black,  who  fought  togedder  fuh  one 
country,  fuh  one  flag." 

Gasps,  sobs  from  the  line  of  black  folk,  interrupted 
the  speaker.  Just  then  a  shriveled  old  negress  gave 
a  scream,  and  came  running  and  half  stumbling  out  of 
the  line,  holding  out  her  arms  to  the  barrel-chested 
soldier  on  the  gang-plank.  She  seized  him  and  began 
shrieking : 

''Bless  Gawd !  my  son  's  done  come  home !  Praise 
de  Lawd!  Bless  His  holy  name!"  Here  her  lau- 
dation broke  into  sobbing  and  choking  and  laughing, 
and  she  squeezed  herself  to  her  son. 

Tump  patted  her  bony  black  form. 

"I 's  heah,  Mammy,"  he  stammered  uncertainly. 
*T  's  come  back,  Mammy." 

Half   a   dozen   other   negroes    caught   the   joyful 


20  BIRTHRIGHT 

hysteria.  They  began  a  religious  shouting,  clapping 
their  hands,  flinging  up  their  arms,  shrieking. 

One  of  the  drummers  grunted : 

"Good  God !  all  this  over  a  nigger  getting  back  !'* 

At  the  extreme  end  of  the  dark  line  a  tall  cream- 
colored  girl  wept  silently.  As  Peter  Siner  stood 
blinking  his  eyes,  he  saw  the  octoroon's  shoulders 
and  breasts  shake  from  the  sobs,  which  her  white 
blood  repressed  to  silence. 

A  certain  sympathy  for  her  grief  and  its  suppression 
kept  Peter  's  eyes  on  the  young  woman,  and  then,  with 
the  queer  effect  of  one  picture  melting  into  another, 
the  strange  girl's  face  assumed  familiar  curves  and 
softnesses,  and  he  was  looking  at  Ida  May. 

A  quiver  traveled  deliberately  over  Peter  from  his 
crisp  black  hair  to  the  soles  of  his  feet.  He  started 
toward  her  impulsively. 

At  that  moment  one  of  the  drummers  picked  up  his 
grip,  and  started  down  the  gang-plank,  and  with  its 
leathern  bulk  pressed  Tump  Pack  and  his  mother  out 
of  his  path.  He  moved  on  to  the  shore  through  the 
negroes,  who  divided  at  his  approach.  The  captain 
of  the  launch  saw  that  other  of  his  white  passengers 
were  becoming  impatient,  and  he  shouted  for  the 
darkies  to  move  aside  and  not  to  block  the  gangway. 
The  youngish  man  drew  the  girl  in  the  tailor  suit  close 
to  him  and  started  through  with  her.  Peter  heard  him 
say,  "They  won't  hurt  you.  Miss  Negle>."  And  Miss 
Negley,  in  the  brisk  nasal  intonation  of  a  Northern 


BIRTHRIGHT  21 

woman,  replied :  "Oh,  I'm  not  afraid.  We  waste  a  lot 
of  sympathy  on  them  back  home,  but  when  you  see 
them—" 

At  that  moment  Peter  heard  a  cry  in  his  ears  and 
felt  arms  thrown  about  his  neck.  He  looked  down  and 
saw  his  mother,  Caroline  Siner,  looking  up  into  his  face 
and  weeping  with  the  general  emotion  of  the  negroes 
and  this  joy  of  her  own.  Caroline  had  changed  since 
Peter  last  saw  her.  Her  eyes  were  a  little  more 
wrinkled,  her  kinky  hair  was  thinner  and  very  gray. 

Something  warm  and  melting  moved  in  Peter  Siner's 
breast.  He  caressed  his  mother  and  murmured  in- 
coherently, as  had  Tump  Pack.  Presently  the  master 
of  the  launch  came  by,  and  touched  the  old  negress,  not 
ungently,  with  the  end  of  a  spike-pole. 

**You  '11  have  to  move,  Aunt  Ca'line,"  he  said. 
"We  're  goin'  to  get  the  freight  off  now." 

The  black  woman  paused  in  her  weeping.  "Yes, 
Mass'  Bob,"  she  said,  and  she  and  Peter  moved  off  of 
the  launch  onto  the  wharf-boat. 

The  Knights  and  Ladies  of  Tabor  were  already 
up  the  river  bank  with  their  hero.  Peter  and  his 
mother  were  left  alone.  Now  they  walked  around  the 
guards  of  the  wharf-boat  to  the  bank,  holding  each 
other's  arms  closely.  As  they  went,  Peter  kept  look- 
ing down  at  his  old  black  mother,  with  a  growing 
tenderness.  She  was  so  worn  and  heavy!  He  rec- 
ognized the  very  dress  she  wore,  an  old  black  silk 
which  she  had  "washed  out"  for  Miss  Patti  Brownell 


22  BIRTHRIGHT 

when  he  was  a  boy.  It  had  been  then,  it  was  now,  her 
best  dress.  During  the  years  the  old  negress  had  reg- 
istered her  increasing  bulk  by  letting  out  seams  and 
putting  in  panels.  Some  of  the  panels  did  not  agree 
with  the  original  fabric  either  in  color  or  in  texture, 
and  now  the  seams  were  stretching  again  and  threaten- 
ing a  rip.  Peter's  own  immaculate  clothes  reproached 
him,  and  he  wondered  for  the  hundredth,  or  for  the 
thousandth  time  how  his  mother  had  obtained  certain 
remittances  which  she  had  forwarded  him  during  his 
college  years. 

As  Peter  and  his  mother  crept  up  the  bank  of  the 
river,  stopping  occasionally  to  let  the  old  negress  rest, 
his  impression  of  the  meanness  and  shabbiness  of  the 
whole  village  grew.  From  the  top  of  the  bank  the 
single  business  street  ran  straight  back  from  the  river. 
It  was  stony  in  places,  muddy  in  places,  strewn  with 
goods-boxes,  broken  planking,  excelsior,  and  straw  that 
had  been  used  for  packing.  Charred  rubbish-piles  lay 
in  front  of  every  store,  which  the  clerks  had  swept  out 
and  attempted  to  burn.  Hogs  roamed  the  thorough- 
fare, picking  up  decaying  fruit  and  parings,  and  nosing 
tin  cans  that  had  been  thrown  out  by  the  merchants. 
The  stores  that  Peter  had  once  looked  upon  as  show- 
places  were  poor  two-story  brick  or  frame  buildings, 
defiled  by  time  and  wear  and  weather.  The  white 
merchants  were  coatless,  listless  men  who  sat  in  chairs 
on  the  brick  pavements  before  their  stores  and  who 
moved  slowly  when  a  customer  entered  their  doors. 


BIRTHRIGHT  23 

And,  strange  to  say,  it  was  this  fall  of  his  white 
townsmen  that  moved  Peter  Siner  with  a  sense  of  the 
greatest  loss.  It  seemed  fantastic  to  him,  this  sudden 
land-slide  of  the  mighty. 

As  Peter  ^nd  his  mother  came  over  the  brow  of  the 
river  bank,  they  saw  a  crowd  collecting  at  the  other  end 
of  the  street.  The  main  street  of  Hooker's  Bend  is 
only  a  block  long,  and  the  two  negroes  could  easily 
hear  the  loud  laughter  of  men  hurrying  to  the  focus  of 
interest  and  the  blurry  expostulations  of  negro  voices. 
The  laughter  spread  like  a  contagion.  Merchants  as 
far  up  as  the  river  corner  became  infected,  and  moved 
toward  the  crowd,  looking  back  over  their  shoulders  at 
every  tenth  or  twelfth  step  to  see  that  no  one  entered 
their  doors. 

Presently,  a  little  short  man,  fairly  yipping  with 
laughter,  stumbled  back  up  the  street  to  his  store  with 
tears  of  mirth  in  his  eyes.  A  belated  merchant  stopped 
him  by  clapping  both  hands  on  his  shoulders  and  shak- 
ing some  composure  into  him. 

''What  is  it?  What's  so  funny?  Damn  it!  I 
miss  ever'thing!" 

'l-i-it's  that  f-fool  Tum-Tump  Pack.  Bobbs 's 
arrested  him !" 

The  inquirer  was  astounded. 

"How  the  hell  can  he  arrest  him  when  he  hit  town 
this  minute?" 

"Wh-why,  Bobbs  had  an  old  warrant  for  crap-shoot- 
ing— three  years  old — before  the  war.     Just  as  Tump 


24  BIRTHRIGHT 

was  a-coming  down  the  street  at  the  head  of  the  coons, 
out  steps  Bobbs — "     Here  the  little  man  was  overcome. 

The  merchant  from  the  corner  opened  his  eyes. 

"Arrested  him  on  an  old  crap  charge?" 

The  little  man  nodded.  They  gazed  at  each  other. 
Then  they  exploded  simultaneously. 

Peter  left  his  obese  mother  and  hurried  to  the  corner. 
Dawson  Bobbs,  the  constable,  had  handcuffs  on 
Tump's  wrists,  and  stood  with  his  prisoner  amid  a 
crowd  of  arguing  negroes. 

Bobbs  was  a  big,  fleshy,  red-faced  man,  with  chilly 
blue  eyes  and  a  little  straight  slit  of  a  mouth  in  his  wide 
face.  He  was  laughing  and  chewing  a  sliver  of  tooth- 
pick. 

"O  Tump  Pack,"  he  called  loudly,  "you  kain't  git 
away  from  me!  If  you  roll  bones  in  Hooker's  Bend, 
you  '11  have  to  divide  your  winnings  with  the  county." 
Dawson  winked  a  chill  eye  at  the  crowd  in  general. 

"But  hit 's  out  o'  date,  Mr.  Bobbs,"  the  old  gray- 
headed  minister.  Parson  Ranson,  was  pleading. 

"May  be  that,  Parson,  but  hit 's  easier  to  come  up 
before  the  J.  P.  and  pay  off  than  to  fight  it  through 
the  circuit  court.'* 

Siner  pushed  his  way  through  the  crowd.  "How 
much  do  you  want,  Mr.  Bobbs  ?"  he  asked  briefly. 

The  constable  looked  with  reminiscent  eyes  at  the 
tall,  well-tailored  negro.  He  was  plainly  going 
through  some  mental  card-index,  hunting  for  the  name 


BIRTHRIGHT  25 

of  Peter  Siner  on  some  long- forgotten  warrant.  Ap- 
parently, he  discovered  nothing,  for  he  said  shortly: 

*'How  do  I  know  before  he 's  tried  ?  Come  on, 
Tumpr 

The  procession  moved  in  a  long  noisy  line  up  Pillow 
Street,  the  white  residential  street  lying  to  the  west. 
It  stopped  before  a  large  shaded  lawn,  where  a  number 
of  white  men  and  women  were  playing  a  game  with 
cards.  The  cards  used  by  the  lawn  party  were  not 
ordinary  playing-cards,  but  had  figures  on  them  instead 
of  spots,  and  were  called  "rook"  cards.  The  party  of 
white  ladies  and  gentlemen  were  playing  "rook." 
On  a  table  in  the  middle  of  the  lawn  glittered  some 
pieces  of  silver  plate  which  formed  the  first,  second, 
and  third  prizes  for  the  three  leading  scores. 

The  constable  halted  his  black  company  before  the 
lawn,  where  they  stood  in  the  sunshine  patiently  wait- 
ing for  the  justice  of  the  peace  to  finish  his  game  and 
hear  the  case  of  the  State  of  Tennessee,  plaintiff,  versus 
Tump  Pack,  defendant. 


CHAPTER  II 

ON  the  eastern  edge  of  Hooker's  Bend,  drawn  in 
a  rough  semicircle  around  the  Big  Hill,  lies 
Niggertown.  In  all  the  half-moon  there  are  perhaps 
not  two  upright  buildings.  The  grimy  cabins  lean  at 
crazy  angles,  some  propped  with  poles,  while  others 
hold  out  against  gravitation  at  a  hazard. 

Up  and  down  its  street  flows  the  slow  negro  life  of 
the  village.  Here  children  of  all  colors  from  black  to 
cream  fight  and  play;  deep-chested  negresses  loiter  to 
and  fro,  some  on  errands  to  the  white  section  of  the 
village  on  the  other  side  of  the  hill,  where  they  go  to 
scrub  or  cook  or  wash  or  iron.  Others  go  down  to 
the  public  well  with  a  bucket  in  each  hand  and  one 
balanced  on  the  head. 

The  public  well  itself  lies  at  the  southern  end  of  this 
miserable  street,  just  at  a  point  where  the  drainage  of 
the  Big  Hill  collects.  The  rainfall  runs  down  through 
Niggertown,  under  its  sties,  stables,  and  outdoor  toilets, 
and  the  well  supplies  the  negroes  with  water  for  cook- 
ing, washing,  and  drinking.  Or,  rather,  what  was 
once  a  well  supplies  this  water,  for  it  is  a  well  no 
longer.     Its  top  and  curbing  caved  in  long  ago,  and 

26 


BIRTHRIGHT  27 

now  there  is  simply  a  big  hole  in  the  soft,  water-soaked 
clay,  about  fifteen  feet  wide,  with  water  standing  at  the 
bottom. 

Here  come  the  unhurried  colored  women,  who  throw 
in  their  buckets,  and  with  a  dexterity  that  comes  of 
long  practice  draw  them  out  full  of  water.  Black 
mothers  shout  at  their  children  not  to  fall  into  this  pit, 
and  now  and  then,  when  a  pig  fails  to  come  up  for  its 
evening  slops,  a  black  boy  will  go  to  the  public  well 
to  see  if  perchance  his  porker  has  met  misfortune  there. 

The  inhabitants  of  Niggertown  suffer  from  divers 
diseases ;  they  develop  strange  ailments  that  no  amount 
of  physicking  will  overcome;  young  wives  grow  sickly 
from  no  apparent  cause.  Although  only  three  or  four 
hundred  persons  Hve  in  Niggertown,  two  or  three  ne- 
groes are  always  slowly  dying  of  tuberculosis;  winter 
brings  pneumonia;  summer,  malaria.  About  once  a 
year  the  state  health  officer  visits  Hooker's  Bend  and 
forces  the  white  soda-water  dispensers  on  the  other 
side  of  the  hill  to  sterilize  their  glasses  in  the  name  of 
the  sovereign  State  of  Tennessee. 

The  Siner  home  was  a  three-room  shanty  about  mid- 
way in  the  semicircle.  Peter  Siner  stood  in  the  sun- 
light just  outside  the  entrance,  watching  his  old  mother 
clean  the  bugs  out  of  a  tainted  ham  that  she  had  bought 
for  a  pittance  from  some  white  housekeeper  in  the 
village.  It  had  been  too  high  for  white  people  to  eat. 
Old  Caroline  patiently  tapped  the  honeycombed  meat 
to  scare  out  the  last  of  the  little  green  householders, 


28  BIRTHRIGHT 

and  then  she  washed  it  in  a  solution  of  soda  to  freshen 
it  up. 

The  sight  of  his  bulky  old  mother  working  at  the 
spoiled  ham  and  of  the  negro  women  in  the  street 
moving  to  and  from  the  infected  well  filled  Peter  Siner 
with  its  terrible  pathos.  Although  he  had  seen  these 
surroundings  all  of  his  life,  he  had  a  queer  impression 
that  he  was  looking  upon  them  for  the  first  time.  Dur- 
ing his  boyhood  he  had  accepted  all  this  without  ques- 
tion as  the  way  the  world  was  made.  During  his 
college  days  a  criticism  had  arisen  in  his  mind,  but  it 
came  slowly,  and  was  tempered  by  that  tenderness 
every  one  feels  for  the  spot  called  home.  Now,  as  he 
stood  looking  at  it,  he  wondered  how  human  beings 
lived  there  at  all.  He  wondered  if  Ida  May  used 
water  from  the  Niggertown  well. 

He  turned  to  ask  old  Caroline,  but  checked  himself 
with  a  man's  instinctive  avoidance  of  mentioning  his 
intimacies  to  his  mother.  At  that  moment,  oddly 
enough,  the  old  negress  brought  up  the  topic  herself. 

**Ida  May  wuz  'quirin'  'bout  you  las'  night,  Peter." 

A  faint  tingle  filtered  through  Peter's  throat  and 
chest,  but  he  asked  casually  enough  what  she  had  said. 

*'Did  n'  say;  she  wrote." 

Peter  looked  around,  frankly  astonished. 

"Wrote?" 

"Yeah;  co'se  she  wrote." 

"What  made  her  write  ?"  a  fantasy  of  Ida  May  dumb 
flickered  before  the  mulatto. 


up  and  down  its  street  flows  the  slow  negro  life  of  the  village 


BIRTHRIGHT  29 

"Why,  Ida  May 's  in  Nlashville."  Caroline  looked 
at  Peter.  "She  wrote  to  Cissie,  astin'  'bout  you.  She 
ast  is  you  as  bright  in  yo'  books  as  you  is  in  yo'  color." 
The  old  negress  gave  a  pleased  abdominal  chuckle  as 
she  admired  her  broad-shouldered  brown  son. 

"But  I  saw  Ida  May  standing  on  the  wharf -boat 
the  day  I  came  home,"  protested  Peter,  still  bewildered. 

"No  you  ain't.  I  reckon  you  seen  Cissie.  Dey  looks 
kind  o'  like  when  you  is  fur  off." 

"Cissie?"  repeated  Peter.  Then  he  remembered  a 
smaller  sister  of  Ida  May's,  a  little,  squalling,  yellow, 
wet-nosed  nuisance  that  had  annoyed  his  adolescence. 
So  that  little  spoil-sport  had  grown  up  into  the  girl 
he  had  mistaken  for  Ida  May.  This  fact  increased  his 
sense  of  strangeness — that  sense  of  great  change  that 
had  fallen  on  the  village  in  his  absence  which  formed 
the  groundwork  of  all  his  renewed  associations. 

Peter's  prolonged  silence  aroused  certain  suspicions 
in  the  old  negress.  She  glanced  at  her  son  out  of  the 
tail  of  her  eyes. 

"Cissie  Dildine  is  Tump  Pack's  gal,"  she  stated  de- 
fensively, with  the  jealousy  all  mothers  feel  toward  all 
sons. 

A  diversion  in  the  shouts  of  the  children  up  the 
mean  street  and  a  sudden  furious  barking  of  dogs 
drew  Peter  from  the  discussion.  He  looked  up,  and 
saw  a  negro  girl  of  about  fourteen  coming  down  the 
curved  street,  with  long,  quick  steps  and  an  occasional 
glance  over  her  shoulder. 


30  BIRTHRIGHT 

From  across  the  thoroughfare  a  small  chocolate- 
colored  woman,  with  her  wool  done  in  outstanding 
spikes,  thrust  her  head  out  at  the  door  and  called : 

^'Whut's  de  matter,  Ofeely?" 

The  girl  lifted  a  high  voice: 

"Oh,  Miss  Nan,  it 's  that  constable  goin'  th'ugh  the 
houses!"  The  girl  veered  across  the  street  to  the 
safety  of  the  open  door  and  one  of  her  own  sex. 

"Good  Lawd !"  cried  the  spiked  one  in  disgust,  "ever' 
time  a  white  pusson  gits  somp'n  misplaced — "  She 
moved  to  one  side  to  allow  the  girl  to  enter,  and  contin- 
ued staring  up  the  street,  with  the  whites  of  her  eyes 
accented  against  her  dark  face,  after  the  way  of  angry 
negroes. 

Around  the  crescent  the  dogs  were  furious.  They 
were  Niggertown  dogs,  and  the  sight  of  a  white  man 
always  drove  them  to  a  frenzy.  Presently  in  the  hulla- 
baloo, Peter  heard  Dawson  Bobbs's  voice  shouting : 

"Aunt  Mahaly,  if  you  kain't  call  off  this  dawg,  I  'm 
shore  goin'  to  kill  him." 

Then  an  old  woman's  scolding  broke  in  and  com- 
plicated the  melee.  Presently  Peter  saw  the  bulky 
form  of  Dawson  Bobbs  come  around  the  curve,  moving 
methodically  from  cabin  to  cabin.  He  held  some 
legal-looking  papers  in  his  hands,  and  Peter  knew  what 
the  constable  was  doing.  He  was  serving  a  blanket 
search-warrant  on  the  whole  black  population  of 
Hooker's  Bend.     At  almost  every  cabin  a  dog  ran  out 


BIRTHRIGHT  31 

to  blaspheme  at  the  intruder,  but  a  wave  of  the  man's 
pistol  sent  them  yelping  under  the  floors  again. 

When  the  constable  entered  a  house,  Peter  could 
hear  him  bumping  and  rattling  among  the  furnishings, 
while  the  black  householders  stood  outside  the  door 
and  watched  him  disturb  their  housekeeping  arrange- 
ments. 

Presently  Bobbs  came  angling  across  the  street 
toward  the  Siner  cabin.  As  he  entered  the  rickety 
gate,  old  Caroline  called  out : 

"Whut  is  you  after,  anyway,  white  man?'' 

Bobbs  turned  cold,  truculent  eyes  on  the  old  negress. 
"A  turkey  roaster,"  he  snapped.  "Some  o'  you  niggers 
stole  Miss  Lou  Arkwright's  turkey  roaster." 

"Tukky  roaster!"  cried  the  old  black  woman,  in 
great  disgust.  "Whut  you  s'pose  us  niggers  is  got  to 
roast  in  a  tukky  roaster?" 

The  constable  answered  shortly  that  his  business 
was  to  find  the  roaster,  not  what  the  negroes  meant 
to  put  in  it. 

*T  decla',"  satirized  old  Caroline,  savagely,  "dish- 
heah  Niggertown  is  a  white  man's  pocket.  Ever' 
time  he  misplace  somp'n,  he  feel  in  his  pocket  to 
see  ef  it  ain't  thaiuh.  Don'-chu  turn  over  dat  sody- 
water,  white  man!  You  know  dey  ain't  no  tukky 
roaster  under  dat  sody- water.  I  'cla'  'fo'  Gawd,  ef 
a  white  man  wuz  to  eat  a  flapjack,  an'  it  did  n'  give 
him  de  belly-ache,  I  'cla'  'fo'  Gawd  he'd  git  out  a 


32  BIRTHRIGHT 

search-wa'nt  to  see  ef  some  nigger  hadn'  stole  dat 
flapjack  goin'  down  his  th'oat." 

*'Mr.  Bobbs  has  to  do  his  work,  Mother,"  put  in 
Peter.  "I  don't  suppose  he  enjoys  it  any  more  than 
we  do." 

"Den  let  'im  git  out'n  dis  business  an'  git  in  an- 
udder,"  scolded  the  old  woman.  '*Dis  sho  is  a  mighty 
po'  business." 

The  ponderous  Mr.  Bobbs  finished  with  a  practised 
thoroughness  his  inspection  of  the  cabin,  and  then  the 
inquisition  proceeded  down  the  street,  around  the  cres- 
cent, and  so  out  of  sight  and  eventually  out  of  hear- 
ing. 

Old  Caroline  snapped  her  chair  back  beside  her 
greasy  table  and  sat  down  abruptly  to  her  spoiled 
ham  again. 

*'Dat  make  me  mad,"  she  grumbled.  "Ever'  time 
a  white  pusson  fail  to  lay  dey  han'  on  somp'n,  dey 
comes  an'  turns  over  ever' thing  in  my  house."  She 
paused  a  moment,  closed  her  eyes  in  thought,  and  then 
mused  aloud :  "I  wonder  who  is  got  Miss  Arkwright's 
roaster." 

The  commotion  of  the  constable's  passing  died  in 
his  wake,  and  Niggertown  resumed  its  careless  ex- 
istence. Dogs  reappeared  from  under  the  cabins  and 
stretched  in  the  sunshine;  black  children  came  out 
of  hiding  and  picked  up  their  play;  the  frightened 
Ophelia  came  out  of  Nan's  cabin  across  the  street 
and  went  her  way;  a  lanky  negro  youth  in  blue  coat 


BIRTHRIGHT  33 

and  pin-striped  trousers  appeared,  coming  down  the 
squalid  thoroughfare  whistling  the  ''Memphis  Blues" 
with  bird-like  virtuosity.  The  lightness  with  which 
Niggertown  accepted  the  moral  side  glance  of  a  blanket 
search-warrant  depressed  Siner. 

Caroline  called  her  son  to  dinner,  as  the  twelve- 
o'clock  meal  is  called  in  Hooker's  Bend,  and  so  ended 
his  meditation.  The  Harvard  man  went  back  into 
the  kitchen  and  sat  down  at  a  rickety  table  covered 
with  a  red-checked  oil-cloth.  On  it  were  spread  the 
spoiled  ham,  a  dish  of  poke  salad,  a  corn  pone,  and  a 
pot  of  weak  coffee.  A  quaint  old  bowl  held  some 
brown  sugar.  The  fat  old  negress  made  a  slight, 
habitual  settling  movement  in  her  chair  that  marked 
the  end  of  her  cooking  and  the  beginning  of  her  meal. 
Then  she  bent  her  grizzled,  woolly  head  and  mumbled 
off  one  of  those  queer  old-fashioned  graces  which 
consist  of  a  swift  string  of  syllables  without  pauses 
between  either  words  or  sentences. 

Peter  sat  watching  his  mother  with  a  musing  gaze. 
The  kitchen  was  illuminated  by  a  single  small  square 
window  set  high  up  from  the  floor.  Now  the  dis- 
position of  its  single  ray  of  light  over  the  dishes  and 
the  bowed  head  of  the  massive  negress  gave  Peter 
one  of  those  sharp,  tender  apprehensions  of  formal 
harmony  that  lie  back  of  the  genre  in  art.  It  stirred 
his  emotion  in  an  odd  fashion.  When  old  Caroline 
raised  her  head,  she  found  her  son  staring  with  im- 
personal eyes  not  at  herself,  but  at  the  whole  ropm^ 


34  BIRTHRIGHT 

including  her.  The  old  woman  was  perplexed  and  a 
little  apprehensive. 

"Why,  son!"  she  ejaculated,  **did  n'  you  bow  yo* 
haid  while  yo'  mammy  ast  de  grace?" 

Peter  was  a  little  confused  at  his  remissness.  Then 
he  leaned  a  little  forward  to  explain  the  sudden  glamour 
which  for  a  moment  had  transfigured  the  interior  of 
their  kitchen.  But  even  as  he  started  to  speak,  he 
realized  that  what  he  meant  to  say  would  only  confuse 
his  mother;  therefore  he  cast  about  mentally  for 
some  other  explanation  of  his  behavior,  but  found 
nothing  at  hand. 

*T  hope  you  ain't  forgot  yo'  'ligion  up  at  de  'versity, 
son." 

"Oh,  no,  no,  indeed.  Mother,  but  just  at  that  mo- 
ment, just  as  you  bowed  your  head,  you  know,  it 
struck  me  that — ^that  there  is  something  noble  in  our 
race."     That  was  the  best  he  could  put  it  to  her. 

"Noble—" 

"Yes.  You  know,"  he  went  on  a  little  quickly, 
"sometimes  I — I  've  thought  my  father  must  have 
been  a  noble  man." 

The  old  negress  became  very  still.  She  was  not 
looking  quite  at  her  son,  or  yet  precisely  away  from 
him. 

"Uh — uh  noble  nigger," — she  gave  her  abdominal 
chuckle.  "Why — yeah,  I  reckon  yo'  father  wuz  putty 
noble  as — as  niggers  go."  She  sat  looking  at  her  son, 
oddly,  with  a  faint  amusement  in  her  gross  black  face, 


BIRTHRIGHT  35 

twhen  a  careful  voice,  a  very  careful  voice,  sounded 
in  the  outer  room,  gliding  up  politely  on  the  syllables : 

"Ahnt  Carolin'!  oh,  Ahnt  Carolin',  may  I  enter?" 

The  old  woman  stirred. 

"Da'  's  Cissie,  Peter.  Go  ast  her  in  to  de  fambly- 
room.'' 

When  Siner  opened  the  door,  the  vague  resemblance 
of  the  slender,  creamy  girl  on  the  threshold  to  Ida 
May  again  struck  him ;  but  Cissie  Dildine  was  younger, 
and  her  polished  black  hair  lay  straight  on  her  pretty 
head,  and  was  done  in  big,  shining  puffs  over  her 
ears  in  a  way  that  Ida  May's  unruly  curls  would 
never  have  permitted.  Her  eyes  were  the  most  limpid 
brown  Peter  had  ever  seen,  but  her  oval  face  was 
faintly  unnatural  from  the  use  of  negro  face  powder, 
which  colored  women  insist  on,  and  which  gives  their 
yellows  and  browns  a  barely  perceptible  greenish  hue. 
Cissie  wore  a  fluffy  yellow  dress  some  three  shades 
deeper  than  the  throat  and  the  glimpse  of  bosom  re- 
vealed at  the  neck. 

The  girl  carried  a  big  package  in  her  arms,  and 
now  she  manipulated  this  to  put  out  a  slender  hand 
to  Peter. 

"This  is  Cissie  Dildine,  Mister  Siner."  She  smiled 
up  at  him.  "I  just  came  over  to  put  my  name  down 
on  your  list.  There  was  such  a  mob  at  the  Benevo- 
lence Hall  last  night  I  could  n't  get  to  you." 

The  girl  had  a  certain  finical  precision  to  her  English 
that  told  Peter  she  had  been  away  to  some  school,  and 


36  BIRTHRIGHT 

had  been  taught  to  guard  her  grammar  very  carefully 
as  she  talked. 

Peter  helped  her  inside  amid  the  handshake  and  said 
he  would  go  fetch  the  list.  As  he  turned,  Cissie 
offered  her  bundle.  **Here  is  something  I  thought 
might  be  a  little  treat  for  you  and  Ahnt  Carolin'." 
She  paused,  and  then  explained  remotely,  "Sometimes 
it  is  hard  to  get  good  things  at  the  village  market." 

Peter  took  the  package,  vaguely  amused  at  Cissie's 
patronage  of  the  Hooker's  Bend  market.  It  was  an 
attitude  instinctively  assumed  by  every  girl,  white  or 
black,  who  leaves  the  village  and  returns.  The  bundle 
was  rather  large  and  wrapped  in  newspapers.  He 
carried  it  into  the  kitchen  to  his  mother,  and  then  re- 
turned with  the  list. 

The  sheet  was  greasy  from  the  handling  of  black 
fingers.  The  girl  spread  it  on  the  little  center-table 
with  a  certain  daintiness,  seated  herself,  and  held  out 
her  hand  for  Peter's  pencil.  She  made  rather  a 
graceful  study  in  cream  and  yellow  as  she  leaned  over 
the  table  and  signed  her  name  in  a  handwriting  as 
perfect  and  as  devoid  of  character  as  a  copy-book. 
She  began  discussing  the  speech  Peter  had  made  at 
the  Benevolence  Halt. 

*T  don't  know  whether  I  am  in  favor  of  your  project 
or  not,  Mr.  Siner,"  she  said  as  she  rose  from  the  table. 

"No  ?"  Peter  was  surprised  and  amused  at  her  atti- 
tude and  at  her  precise  voice. 

"No,   I  'm   rather  inclined  toward   Mr.    DuBois's 


BIRTHRIGHT  37 

theory  of  a  literary  culture  than  toward  Mr.  Washing- 
ton's plan  for  a  purely  industrial  training." 

Peter  broke  out  laughing. 

*Tor  the  love  of  Mike,  Cissie,  you  talk  like  the 
instructor  in  Sociology  B !  And  have  n't  we  met  be- 
fore somewhere?     This  *Mister  Siner'  stuff — " 

The  girl's  face  warmed  under  its  faint,  greenish 
powder. 

"If  I  aren't  careful  with  my  language,  Peter,"  she 
said  simply,  "I  '11  be  talking  just  as  badly  as  I  did 
before  I  went  to  the  seminary.  You  know  I  never 
hear  a  proper  sentence  in  Hooker's  Bend  except  my 
own." 

A  certain  resignation  in  the  girl's  soft  voice  brought 
Peter  a  quakn  for  laughing  at  her.  He  laid  an  im- 
pulsive hand  on  her  young  shoulder. 

"Well,  that 's  true,  certainly,  but  it  won't  always 
be  like  that,  Cissie.  More  of  us  go  off  to  school  every 
year.  I  do  hope  my  school  here  in  Hooker's  Bend 
will  be  of  some  real  value.  If  I  could  just  show  our 
people  how  badly  we  fare  here,  how  ill  fed,  ill  housed, 
and  unsanitary — " 

The  girl  pressed  Peter's  fingers  with  a  woman's 
optimism  for  a  man. 

"You  '11  succeed,  Peter,  I  know  you  will.  Some 
day  the  name  Siner  will  mean  the  same  thing  to 
colored  people  as  Tanner  and  Dunbar  and  Braithwaite 
do.  Anyway,  I  've  put  my  name  down  for  ten  dollars 
to  help  out."     She  returned  the  pencil,     "I  '11  have 


38  BIRTHRIGHT 

Tump  Pack  come  around  and  pay  you  my  subscription, 
Peter." 

"I  '11  watch  out  for  Tump,"  promised  Peter  in  a 
lightening  mood,  '* — and  make  him  pay." 

"He  '11  do  it." 

*T  don't  doubt  it.  You  ought  to  have  him  under 
perfect  control.  I  meant  to  tell  you  what  a  pretty 
frock  you  have  on." 

The  girl  dimpled,  and  dropped  him  a  little  curtsy, 
half  ironical  and  wholly  graceful. 

Peter  was  charmed. 

"Now  keep  that  way,  Cissie,  smiling  and  human,  not 
so  grammatical.     I  wish  I  had  a  brooch." 

"A  brooch?" 

*T  'd  give  it  to  you.  Your  dress  needs  a  brooch, 
an  old  gold  brooch  at  the  bosom,  just  a  glint  there  to 
balance  your  eyes." 

Cissie  flushed  happily,  and  made  the  feminine  move- 
ment of  concealing  the  V-shaped  opening  at  her  throat. 

"It 's  a  pleasure  to  doll  up  for  a  man  like  you,  Peter. 
You  see  a  girl's  good  points — if  she  has  any,"  she 
tacked  on  demurely. 

"Oh,  just  any  man — '* 

"Don't  think  it!  Don't  think  it!"  waved  down 
Cissie,   humorously. 

"But,    Cissie,   how  is   it   possible — " 

"Just  blind."  Cissie  rippled  into  a  boarding-school 
laugh.  "I  could  wear  the  whole  rue  del  Opera  here 
in  Niggertown,  and  nobody  would  ever  see  it  but  you." 


BIRTHRIGHT  39 

Cissie  was  moving  toward  the  door.  Peter  tried 
to  detain  her.  He  enjoyed  the  implication  of  Tump 
Pack's  stupidity,  in  their  badinage,  but  she  would  not 
stay.  He  was  finally  reduced  to  thanking  her  for  her 
present,  then  stood  guard  as  she  tripped  out  into  the 
grimy  street.  In  the  sunshine  her  glossy  black  hair 
and  canary  dress  looked  as  trim  and  brilliant  as  the 
plumage  of  a  chaffinch. 

Peter  Siner  walked  back  into  the  kitchen  with  the 
fixed  smile  of  a  man  who  is  thinking  of  a  pretty  girl. 
The  black  dowager  in  the  kitchen  received  him  in 
silence,  with  her  thick  lips  pouted.  When  Peter  ob- 
served it,  he  felt  slightly  amused  at  his  mother's  resent- 
ment. 

"Well,  you  sho  had  a  lot  o'  chatter  over  signin'  a 
HI  ole  paper." 

"She  signed  for  ten  dollars,"  said  Peter,  smiling. 

"Huh !  she  '11  never  pay  it." 

"Said  Tump  Pack  would  pay  it." 

"Huh!"  The  old  negress  dropped  the  subject,  and 
nodded  at  a  huge  double  pan  on  the  table.  "Dat  's 
whut  she  brung  you."     She  grunted  disapprovingly. 

"And  it 's  for  you,  too,  Mother." 

"Ya-as,  I  'magine  she  brung  somp'n  fuh  me." 

Peter  walked  across  to  the  double  pans,  and  saw 
they  held  a  complete  dinner — chicken,  hot  biscuits, 
cake,  pickle,  even  ice-cream. 

The  sight  of  the  food  brought  Peter  a  realization 
that  he  was  keenly  hungry.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 


40  BIRTHRIGHT 

had  not  eaten  a  palatable  meal  since  he  had  been 
evicted  from  the  white  dining-car  at  Cairo,  Illinois. 
Siner  served  his  own  and  his  mother's  plate. 

The  old  woman  sniffed  again. 

"Seems  to  me  lak  you  is  mighty  onobsarvin'  fuh  a 
nigger  whut  's  been  off  to  college." 

''Anything  else?"  Peter  looked  into  the  pans  again. 

"Ain't  you  see  whut  it 's  all  in?" 

"What  it's  in?" 

"Yeah ;  whut  it 's  in.     You  beared  whut  I  said." 

"What  is  it  in?" 

"Why,  it 's  in  Miss  Arkwright's  tukky  roaster, 
dat  *s  whut  it 's  in."  The  old  negress  drove  her  point 
home  with  an  acid  accent. 

Peter  Siner  was  too  loyal  to  his  new  friendship 
with  Cissie  Dildine  to  allow  his  mother's  jealous  suspi- 
cions to  affect  him;  nevertheless  the  old  woman's  ob- 
servations about  the  turkey  roaster  did  prevent  a  com- 
plete and  care- free  enjoyment  of  the  meal.  Certainly, 
there  were  other  turkey  roasters  in  Hooker's  Bend  than 
Mrs.  Arkwright's.  Cissie  might  very  well  own  a 
roaster.  It  was  absurd  to  think  that  Cissie,  in  the 
midst  of  her  almost  pathetic  struggle  to  break  away 
from  the  uncouthness  of  Niggertown,  would  stoop  to — 
Even  in  his  thoughts  Peter  avoided  nominating  the 
charge. 

And  then,  somehow,  his  memory  fished  up  the  fact 
that  years  ago  Ida  May,  according  to  village  rumor, 
was   "light-fingered."     At  that  time   in   Peter's   life 


BIRTHRIGHT  41 

"light-fingeredness"  carried  with  it  no  opprobrium 
whatever.  It  was  simply  a  fact  about  Ida  May,  as 
were  her  sloe  eyes  and  curling  black  hair.  His 
reflections  renewed  his  perpetual  sense  of  queemess 
and  strangeness  that  hall-marked  every  phase  of 
Niggertown  life  since  his  return  from  the  North. 

Cissie  Dildine's  contribution  tailed  out  the  one 
hundred  dollars  that  Peter  needed,  and  after  he  had 
finished  his  meal,  the  mulatto  set  out  across  the  Big 
Hill  for  the  white  section  of  the  village,  to  complete 
his  trade. 

It  was  Peter's  program  to  go  to  the  Planter's  Bank, 
pay  down  his  hundred,  and  receive  a  deed  from  one 
Elias  Tomwit,  which  the  bank  held  in  escrow.  Two 
or  three  days  before  Peter  had  tried  to  borrow  the 
initial  hundred  from  the  bank,  but  the  cashier,  Henry 
Hooker,  after  going  into  the  transaction,  had  declined 
the  loan,  and  therefore  Siner  had  been  forced  to  await 
a  meeting  of  the  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Benevolence. 
At  this  meeting  the  subscription  had  gone  through 
promptly.  The  land  the  negroes  purposed  to  pur- 
chase for  an  industrial  school  was  a  timbered  tract 
lying  southeast  of  Hooker's  Bend  on  the  head-waters 
of  Ross  Creek.  A  purchase  price  of  eight  hundred  dol- 
lars had  been  agreed  upon.  The  timber  on  the  tract, 
sold  on  the  stump,  would  bring  almost  that  amount. 
It  was  Siner's  plan  to  commandeer  free  labor  in 
Niggertown,  work  off  the  timber,  and  have  enough 


42  BIRTHRIGHT 

money  to  build  the  first  unit  of  his  school.  A  num- 
ber of  negro  men  already  had  subscribed  a  certain 
number  of  days'  work  in  the  timber.  It  was  a  modest 
and  entirely  practical  program,  and  Peter  felt  set 
up  over  it. 

The  brown  man  turned  briskly  out  into  the  hot 
afternoon  sunshine,  down  the  mean  semicircular 
street,  where  piccaninnies  were  kicking  up  clouds  of 
dust.  He  hurried  through  the  dusty  area,  and  pres- 
ently turned  off  a  by-path  that  led  over  the  hill,  through 
a  glade  of  cedars,  to  the  white  village. 

The  glade  was  gloomy,  but  warm,  for  the  shade 
of  cedars  somehow  seems  to  hold  heat.  A  carpet  of 
needles  hushed  Siner's  footfalls  and  spread  a  Sab- 
batical silence  through  the  grove.  The  upward  path 
was  not  smooth,  but  was  broken  with  outcrops  of  the 
same  reddish  limestone  that  marks  the  whole  stretch 
of  the  Tennessee  River.  Here  and  there  in  the  grove 
were  circles  eight  or  ten  feet  in  diameter,  brushed 
perfectly  clean  of  all  needles  and  pebbles  and  twigs. 
These  places  were  crap-shooters'  circles,  where  black 
and  white  men  squatted  to  shoot  dice. 

Under  the  big  stones  on  the  hillside,  Peter  knew, 
was  cached  illicit  whisky,  and  at  night  the  boot-leg- 
gers carried  on  a  brisk  trade  among  the  gamblers. 
iMore  than  that,  the  glade  on  the  Big  Hill  was 
used  for  still  more  demoralizing  ends.  It  became  a 
squalid  grove  of  Ashtoreth;  but  now,  in  the  autumn 
evening,  all  the  petty  obscenities  of  white  and  black 


BIRTHRIGHT  43 

sloughed  away  amid  the  religious  implications  of  the 
dark-green  aisles. 

The  sight  of  a  white  boy  sitting  on  an  outcrop 
of  limestone  with  a  strap  of  school-books  dropped  at 
his  feet  rather  surprised  Peter.  The  negro  looked 
at  the  hobbledehoy  for  several  seconds  before  he 
recognized  in  the  lanky  youth  a  little  Arkwright  boy 
whom  he  had  known  and  played  with  in  his  pre-college 
days.  Now  there  was  such  an  exaggerated  wistful- 
ness  in  young  Arkwright's  attitude  that  Peter  was 
amused. 

"Hello,  Sam,"  he  called.  *What  you  doing  out 
here?" 

The  Arkwright  boy  turned  with  a  start. 

"Aw,  is  that  you,  Siner?"  Before  the  negro  could 
reply,  he  added:  "Was  you  on  the  Harvard  foot- 
ball team,  Siner?  Guess  the  white  fellers  have  a 
pretty  gay  time  in  Harvard,  don't  they,  Siner? 
Geemenettie!  but  I  git  tired  o'  this  dern  town! 
D'  reckon  I  could  make  the  football  team  ?  Looks 
like  I  could  if  a  nigger  like  you  could,  Siner." 

None  of  this  juvenile  outbreak  of  questions  re- 
quired answers.  Peter  stood  looking  at  the  hobble- 
dehoy without  smiling. 

"Aren't  you  going  to  school?"  he  asked. 

Arkwright  shrugged. 

"Aw,  hell!"  he  said  self-consciously.  "We  got 
marched  down  to  the  protracted  meetin'  while  ago — 
whole  school  did.     My  seat  happened  to  be  close  to  a 


44  BIRTHRIGHT 

window.  When  they  all  stood  up  to  sing,  I  crawled 
out  and  skipped.     Don't  mention  that,  Siner." 

"I  won't." 

**When  a  fellow  goes  to  college  he  don't  git  marched 
to  preachin',  does  he,  Siner?" 

*T  never  did." 

"We-e-11,"  mused  young  Sam,  doubtfully,  "you're 
a  nigger." 

"I  never  saw  any  white  men  marched  in,  either." 

"Oh,  hell!     I  wish  I  was  in  college." 

"What  are  you  sitting  out  here  thinking  about?" 
inquired  Peter  of  the  ingenuous  youngster. 

"Oh — football  and — women  and  God  and — how 
to  stack  cards.  You  think  about  ever'thing,  in  the 
woods.  Damn  it!  I  got  to  git  out  o'  this  little  jay 
town.     D' reckon  I  could  git  in  the  navy,  Siner?" 

"Don't  see  why  you  couldn't,  Sam.  Have  you 
seen  Tump  Pack  anywhere?" 

"Yeah;  on  Hobbett's  comer.  Say,  is  Cissie  Dil- 
dine  at  home?" 

"I  believe  she  is." 

"She  cooks  for  us,"  explained  young  Arkwright, 
"and  Mammy  wants  her  to  come  and  git  supper,  too." 

The  phrase  "get  supper,  too,"  referred  to  the  custom 
in  the  white  homes  of  Hooker's  Bend  of  having  only 
two  meals  cooked  a  day,  breakfast  and  the  twelve- 
o'clock  dinner,  with  a  hot  supper  optional  with  the 
mistress. 

Peter  nodded,   and  passed   on  up  the   path,  leav- 


BIRTHRIGHT  45 

ing  young  Arkwright  seated  on  the  ledge  of  rock, 
a  prey  to  all  the  boiling,  erratic  impulses  of  adoles- 
cence. The  negro  sensed  some  of  the  innumerable 
difficulties  of  this  white  boy's  life,  and  once,  as  he 
walked  on  over  the  silent  needles,  he  felt  an  impulse 
to  turn  back  and  talk  to  young  Sam  Arkwright,  to 
sit  down  and  try  to  explain  to  the  youth  what  he 
could  of  this  hazardous  adventure  called  Life.  But 
then,  he  reflected,  very  likely  the  boy  would  be  offended 
at  a  serious  talk  from  a  negro.  Also,  he  thought  that 
young  Arkwright,  being  white,  was  really  not  within 
the  sphere  of  his  ministry.  He,  Peter  Siner,  was  a 
worker  in  the  black  world  of  the  South.  He  was  part 
of  the  black  world  which  the  white  South  was  so 
meticulous  to  hide  away,  to  keep  out  of  sight  and  out 
of  thought. 

A  certain  vague  sense  of  triumph  trickled  through 
some  obscure  corner  of  Peter's  mind.  It  was  so 
subtle  that  Peter  himself  would  have  been  the  first, 
in  all  good  faith,  to  deny  it  and  to  affirm  that  all  his 
motives  were  altruistic.  Once  he  looked  back  through 
the  cedars.  He  could  still  see  the  boy  hunched  over, 
chin  in  fist,  staring  at  the  mat  of  needles. 

As  Peter  turned  the  brow  of  the  Big  Hill,  he  saw 
at  its  eastern  foot  the  village  church,  a  plain  brick 
building  with  a  decaying  spire.  Its  side  was  perfor- 
ated by  four  tall  arched  windows.  Each  was  a  me- 
morial window  of  stained  glass,  which  gave  the  build- 
ing a  black  look  from  the  outside.     As  Peter  walked 


46  BIRTHRIGHT 

down  the  hill  toward  the  church  he  heard  the  confused 
and  somewhat  nasal  singing  of  uncultivated  white 
voices  mingled  with  the  snoring  of  a  reed  organ. 

When  he  reached  Main  Street,  Peter  found  the 
whole  business  portion  virtually  deserted.  All  the 
stores  were  closed,  and  in  every  show-window  stood 
a  printed  notice  that  no  business  would  be  transacted 
between  the  hours  of  two  and  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  during  the  two  weeks  of  revival  then  in 
progress.  Beside  this  notice  stood  another  card,  giv- 
ing the  minister's  text  for  the  current  day.  On  this 
particular  day  it  read: 

GO  YE  INTO  ALL  THE  WORLD 

Come  hear  Rev.  E.  B.  Blackwater's  great 

Missionary  Address  on 

CHRISTIANIZING  AFRICA 

ELOQUENT,    PROFOUND,    HEART-SEARCHING. 
ILLUSTRATED  WITH  SLIDES. 

Half  a  dozen  negroes  lounged  in  the  sunshine  on 
Hobbett's  corner  as  Peter  came  up.  They  were  amus- 
ing themselves  after  the  fashion  of  blacks,  with  mock 
fights,  feints,  sudden  wrestlings.  They  would  seize 
one  another  by  the  head  and  grind  their  knuckles  into 
one  another's  wool.  Occasionally,  one  would  leap 
up  and  fall  into  one  of  those  grotesque  shuffles  called 
"breakdowns."  It  all  held  a  certain  rawness,  an  ir- 
repressible juvenility. 

As  Peter  came  up.  Tump  Pack  detached  himself 
from  the  group  and  gave  a  pantomime  of  thrusting. 


BIRTHRIGHT  47 

He  was  clearly  reproducing  the  action  which  had  won 
for  him  his  military  medal.  Then  suddenly  he  fell 
down  in  the  dust  and  writhed.  He  was  mimicking 
with  a  ghastly  realism  the  death- throes  of  his  four 
victims.  His  audience  howled  with  mirth  at  this 
dumb  show  of  the  bayonet-fight  and  of  killing  four 
men.  Tump  himself  got  up  out  of  the  dust  with  tears 
of  laughter  in  his  eyes.  Peter  caught  the  end  of  his 
sentence,  *'Sho  put  it  to  'em,  black  boy.  Fo'  white 
men — " 

His  audience  roared  again,  swayed  around,  and 
pounded  one  another  in  an  excess  of  mirth. 

Siner  shouted  from  across  the  street  two  or  three 
times  before  he  caught  Tump's  attention.  The  ex- 
soldier  looked  around,  sobered  abruptly. 

"Whut-chu  want,  nigger?"  His  inquiry  was  not 
over-cordial. 

Peter  nodded  him  across  the  street. 

The  heavily  built  black  in  khaki  hesitated  a  moment, 
then  started  across  the  street  with  the  dragging  feet 
of  a  reluctant  negro.  Peter  looked  at  him  as  he 
came  up. 

"What's  the  matter.  Tump?"  he  asked  playfully. 

"Ain't   nothin'   matter   wid   me,   nigger." 

Peter  made  a  guess  at  Tump's  surliness. 

"Look  here,  are  you  puffed  up  because  Cissie  Dil- 
dine  struck  you  for  a  ten?" 

Tump's  expression  changed. 

"Is  she  struck  me  fuh  a  ten?" 


48  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Yes;   on  that   school   subscription." 

"Is  dat  whut  you  two  niggers  wuz  a-talkin'  'bout 
over  thaiuh  in  yo'  house?" 

"Exactly."  Peter  showed  the  list,  with  Cissie's 
name  on  it.     "She  told  me  to  collect  from  you." 

Tump  brightened  up. 

"So  dat  wuz  whut  you  two  niggers  wuz  a-talkin' 
'bout  over  at  yo'  house."  He  ran  a  fist  down  into 
his  khaki,  and  drew  out  three  or  four  one-dollar  bills 
and  about  a  pint  of  small  change.  It  was  the  usual 
crap-shooter's  offering.  The  two  negroes  sat  down 
on  the  ramshackle  porch  of  an  old  jeweler's  shop,  and 
Tump  began  a  complicated  tally  of  ten  dollars. 

By  the  time  he  had  his  dimes,  quarters,  and  nickels 
in  separate  stacks,  services  in  the  village  church  were 
finished,  and  the  congregation  came  filing  up  the 
street.  First  came  the  school-children,  running  and 
chattering  and  swinging  their  books  by  the  straps; 
then  the  business  men  of  the  hamlet,  rather  uncom- 
fortable in  coats  and  collars,  hurrying  back  to  their 
stores;  finally  came  the  women,  surrounding  the 
preacher. 

Tump  and  Peter  walked  on  up  to  the  entrance  of  the 
Planter's  Bank  and  there  awaited  Mr.  Henry  Hooker, 
the  cashier.  Presently  a  skinny  man  detached  him- 
self from  the  church  crowd  and  came  angling  across 
the  dirty  street  toward  the  bank.  Mr.  Hooker  wore 
somewhat  shabby  clothes  for  a  banker;  in  fact,  he 
never   could    recover    from    certain   personal    habits 


BIRTHRIGHT  49 

formed  during  a  penurious  boyhood.  He  had  a  thin 
hatchet  face  which  just  at  this  moment  was  shining 
as  though  from  some  inward  glow.  Although  he 
was  an  unhandsome  little  man,  his  expression  was  that 
of  one  at  peace  with  man  and  God  and  was  pleasant 
to  see.  He  had  been  so  excited  by  the  minister  that 
he  was  constrained  to  say  something  even  to  two 
negroes.  So  as  he  unlocked  the  little  one-story  bank, 
he  told  Tump  and  Peter  that  he  had  been  listening  to 
a  man  who  was  truly  a  man  of  God.  He  said  Black- 
water  could  touch  the  hardest  heart,  and,  sure  enough, 
Mr.  Hooker's  rather  popped  and  narrow-set  eyes 
looked  as  though  he  had  been  crying. 

All  this  encomium  was  given  in  a  high,  cracked 
voice  as  the  cashier  opened  the  door  and  turned  the 
negroes  into  the  bank.  Tump,  who  stood  with  his 
hat  off,  listening  to  all  the  cashier  had  to  say,  said  he 
thought  so,  too. 

The  shabby  interior  of  the  little  bank,  the  shabby 
little  banker,  renewed  that  sense  of  disillusion  that 
pervaded  Peter's  home-coming.  In  Boston  the  mu- 
latto had  done  his  slight  banking  business  in  a  white 
marble  structure  with  tellers  of  machine-like  brisk- 
ness and  neatness. 

Mr.  Hooker  strolled  around  into  his  grill-cage; 
when  he  was  thoroughly  ensconced  he  began  business 
in  his  high  voice: 

"You  came  to  see  me  about  that  land,  Peter?" 

"Yes,  sir." 


50  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Sorry  to  tell  you,  Peter,  you  are  not  back  in  time 
to  get  the  Tomwit  place." 

Peter  came  out  of  his  musing  over  the  Boston  banks 
with  a  sense  of  bewilderment. 

"How's  that?  why,  I  bought  that  land—" 

"But  you  paid  nothing  for  your  option,  Siner." 

"I  had  a  clear-cut  understanding  with  Mr.  Tom- 
wit—" 

Mr.  Hooker  smiled  a  smile  that  brought  out  sharp 
wrinkles  around  the  thin  nose  on  his  thin   face. 

"You  should  have  paid  him  an  earnest,  Siner,  if 
you  wanted  to  bind  your  trade.  You  colored  folks 
are  always  stumbling  over  the  law." 

Peter  stared  through  the  grating,  not  knowing  what 
to  do. 

"I  '11  go  see  Mr.  Tomwit,"  he  said,  and  started  un- 
certainly for  the  door. 

The   cashier's   falsetto   stopped   him: 

"No  use,  Peter.  Mr.  Tomwit  surprised  me,  too, 
but  no  use  talking  about  it.  I  did  n't  like  to  see  such 
an  important  thing  as  the  education  of  our  colored 
people  held  up,  myself.     I  've  been  thinking  about  it." 

"Especially  when  I  had  made  a  fair  square  trade," 
put  in  Peter,  warmly. 

"Exactly,"  squeaked  the  cashier.  "And  rather  than 
let  your  project  be  delayed,  I  'm  going  to  offer  you 
the  old  Dillihay  place  at  exactly  the  same  price,  Peter 
— eight  hundred." 

"The  Dillihay  place?" 


BIRTHRIGHT  51 

"Yes;  that's  west  of  town;  it's  bigger  by  twenty 
acres  than  old  man  Tomwit's  place." 

Peter  considered  the  proposition. 

"1 11  have  to  carry  this  before  the  Sons  and 
Daughters  of  Benevolence,  Mr.  Hooker." 

The  cashier  repeated  the  smile  that  bracketed  his 
thin  nose  in  wrinkles. 

"That 's  with  you,  but  you  know  what  you  say 
goes  with  the  niggers  here  in  town,  and,  besides,  I 
won't  promise  how  long  I  '11  hold  the  Dillihay  place. 
Real  estate  is  brisk  around  here  now.  I  did  n't  want 
to  delay  a  good  work  on  account  of  not  having  a 
location."  Mr.  Hooker  turned  away  to  a  big  ledger 
on  a  breast-high  desk,  and  apparently  was  about  to 
settle  himself  to  the  endless  routine  of  bank  work. 

Peter  knew  the  Dillihay  place  well.  It  lacked  the 
timber  of  the  other  tract;  still,  it  was  fairly  desirable. 
He  hesitated  before  the  tarnished  grill. 

''What  do  you  think  about  it,  Tump?" 

"You  won't  make  a  mistake  in  buying,"  answered 
the  high  voice  of  Mr.  Hooker  at  his  ledger. 

"I  don'  think  you  '11  make  no  mistake  in  buyin', 
Peter,"  repeated  Tump's  bass. 

Peter  turned  back  a  little  uncertainly,  and  asked 
how  long  it  would  take  to  fix  the  new  deed.  He  had 
a  notion  of  making  a  flying  canvass  of  the  officers  of 
the  Sons  and  Daughters  in  the  interim.  He  was 
surprised  to  find  that  Mr.  Hooker  already  had  the 
deed  and  the  notes  ready  to  sign,  in  anticipation  of 


52  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter's  desires.  Here  the  banker  brought  out  the 
set  of  papers. 

''I'll  take  it,"  decided  Peter;  "and  if  the  lodge 
does  n't  want  it,  I  '11  keep  the  place  myself." 

"I  like  to  deal  with  a  man  of  decision,"  piped  the 
cashier,  a  wrinkled  smile  on  his  sharp  face. 

Peter  pushed  in  his  bag  of  collections,  then  Mr. 
Hooker  signed  the  deed,  and  Peter  signed  the  land 
notes.  They  exchanged  the  instruments.  Peter  re- 
ceived the  crisp  deed,  bound  in  blue  manuscript  cover. 
It  rattled  unctuously.  To  Peter  it  was  his  first  step 
toward  a  second  Tuskegee. 

The  two  negroes  walked  out  of  the  Planter's  Bank 
filled  with  a  sense  of  well-doing.  Tump  Pack  was 
openly  proud  of  having  been  connected,  even  in  a 
casual  way,  with  the  purchase.  As  he  walked  down 
the  steps,  he  turned  to  Peter. 

*'Don'  reckon  nobody  could  git  a  deed  off  on  you 
wid  stoppers  in  it,  does  you?" 

"We  don't  know  any  such  word  as  *stop,'  Tump," 
declared  Peter,  gaily. 

For  Peter  was  gay.  The  whole  incident  at  the  bank 
was  beginning  to  please  him.  The  meeting  of  a  sud- 
den difficulty,  his  quick  decision — it  held  the  quality  of 
leadership.     Napoleon  had   it. 

The  two  colored  men  stepped  briskly  through  the 
afternoon  sunshine  along  the  mean  village  street. 
Here  and  there  in  front  of  their  doorways  sat  the 


BIRTHRIGHT  53 

merchants,  yawning  and  talking,  or  watching  pigs 
root  in  the  piles  of  waste. 

In  Peter's  heart  came  a  wonderful  thought.  He 
would  make  his  industrial  institution  such  a  model 
of  neatness  that  the  whole  village  of  Hooker's  Bend 
would  catch  the  spirit.  The  white  people  should  see 
that  something  clean  and  uplifting  could  come  out  of 
Niggertown.  The  two  races  ought  to  live  for  a 
mutual  benefit.  It  was  a  fine,  generous  thought.  For 
some  reason,  just  then,  there  flickered  through  Peter's 
mind  a  picture  of  the  Arkwright  boy  sitting  hunched 
over  in  the  cedar  glade,  staring  at  the  needles. 

All  this  musing  was  brushed  away  by  the  sight  of 
old  Mr.  Tomwit  crossing  the  street  from  the  east  side 
to  the  livery-stable  on  the  west.  That  human  desire 
of  wanting  the  person  who  has  wronged  you  to  know 
that  you  know  your  injury  moved  Peter  to  hurry  his 
steps  and  to  speak  to  the  old  gentleman. 

Mr.  Tomwit  had  been  a  Confederate  cavalryman  in 
the  Civil  War,  and  there  was  still  a  faint  breeze  and 
horsiness  about  him.  He  was  a  hammered-down  old 
gentleman,  with  hair  thin  but  still  jet-black,  a  seamed, 
sunburned  face,  and  a  flattened  nose.  His  voice  was 
always  a  friendly  roar.  Now,  when  he  saw  Peter 
turning  across  the  street  to  meet  him,  he  halted  and 
called  out  at  once: 

"Now,  Peter,  I  know  what  *s  the  matter  with  you. 
I  did  n't  do  you  right." 


54  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter  went  closer,  not  caring  to  take  the  whole  vil- 
lage into  his  confidence. 

"How  came  you  to  turn  down  my  proposition,  Mr. 
Tom  wit/'  he  asked,  * 'after  we  had  agreed  and  drawn 
up  the  papers?" 

"We-e-ell,  I  had  to  do  it,  Peter,"  explained  the  old 
man,  loudly. 

"Why,  Mr.  Tomwit?" 

"A  white  neighbor  wanted  me  to,  Peter,"  boomed 
the  cavalryman. 

"Who,  Mr.  Tomwit?" 

"Henry  Hooker  talked  me  into  it,  Peter.  It  was 
a  mean  trick,  Peter.  I  done  you  wrong."  He  stood 
nodding  his  head  and  rubbing  his  flattened  nose  in  an 
impersonal  manner.  "Yes,  I  done  you  wrong,  Peter," 
he  acknowledged  loudly,  and  looked  frankly  into 
Peter's  eyes. 

The  negro  was  immensely  surprised  that  Henry 
Hooker  had  done  such  a  thing.  A  thought  came  that 
perhaps  some  other  Henry  Hooker  had  moved  into 
town  in  his  absence. 

"You  don't  mean  the  cashier  of  the  bank?" 

Old  Mr.  Tom  wit  drew  out  a  plug  of  Black  Mule 
tobacco,  set  some  gapped,  discolored  teeth  into  a 
corner,  nodded  at  Peter  silently,  at  the  same  time  utiliz- 
ing the  nod  to  tear  off  a  large  quid.  He  rolled  this 
about  with  his  tongue  and  after  a  few  moments  ad- 
justed it  so  that  he  could  speak. 

"Yeah,"  he  proceeded  in  a  muffled  tone,  "they  ain't 


BIRTHRIGHT  '55 

but  one  Henry  Hooker ;  he  is  the  one  and  only  Henry. 
He  said  if  I  sold  you  my  land,  you  'd  put  up  a  nigger 
school  and  bring  in  so  many  blackbirds  you  'd  run  me 
clean  off  my  farm.  He  said  it  'd  ruin  the  whole  town, 
a  nigger  school  would." 

Peter  was   astonished. 

"Why,  he  didn't  talk  that  way  to  me!" 

"Natchelly,  natchelly,"  agreed  the  old  cavalryman, 
dryly.  *'Henry  has  a  different  way  to  talk  to  ever' 
man,  Peter." 

*'In  fact,"  proceeded  Peter,  ''Mr.  Hooker  sold  me 
the  old  Dillihay  place  in  lieu  of  the  deal  I  missed  with 
you." 

Old  Mr.  Tomwit  moved  his  quid  in  surprise. 

"The  hell  he  did!" 

"That  at  least  shows  he  doesn't  think  a  negro 
school  would  ruin  the  value  of  his  land.  He  owns 
farms  all  around  the  Dillihay  place." 

Old  Mr.  Tomwit  turned  his  quid  over  twice  and 
spat  thoughtfully. 

"That  your  deed  in  your  pocket?"  With  the  air  of 
a  man  certain  of  being  obeyed  he  held  out  his  hand  for 
the  blue  manuscript  cover  protruding  from  the  mu- 
latto's pocket.  Peter  handed  it  over.  The  old  gentle- 
man unfolded  the  deed,  then  moved  it  carefully  to  and 
from  his  eyes  until  the  typewriting  was  adjusted  to 
his  focus.  He  read  it  slowly,  with  a  movement  of 
his  lips  and  a  drooling  of  tobacco- juice.  Finally  he 
finished,   remarked,   "I  be  damned!"   in  a  deliberate 


56  BIRTHRIGHT 

voice,  returned  the  deed,  and  proceeded  across  the 
street  to  the  livery-stable,  which  was  fronted  by  an 
old  mulberry-tree,  with  several  chairs  under  it.  In 
one  of  these  chairs  he  would  sit  for  the  remainder  of 
the  day,  making  an  occasional  loud  remark  about  the 
weather  or  the  crops,  and  watching  the  horses  pass 
in  and  out  of  the  stable. 

Siner  had  vaguely  enjoyed  old  Mr.  Tomwit's  dis- 
comfiture over  the  deed,  if  it  was  discomfiture  that 
had  moved  the  old  gentleman  to  his  sententious  pro- 
fanity. But  the  negro  did  not  understand  Henry 
Hooker's  action  at  all.  The  banker  had  abused  his 
position  of  trust  as  holder  of  a  deed  in  escrow  by 
snapping  up  the  sale  himself;  then  he  had  sold  Peter 
the  Dillihay  place.     It  was  a  queer  shift. 

Tump  Pack  caught  his  principal's  mood  with  that 
chameleon-like  mental  quality  all  negroes  possess. 

"Dat  Henry  Hooker,'*  criticized  Tump,  "alius  wuz 
a  lil  ole  dried-up  snake  in  de  grass.'* 

"He  abused  his  position  of  trust,"  said  Peter, 
gloomily;  "I  must  say,  his  motives  seem  very  obscure 
to  me." 

"Dat  sho  am  a  fine  way  to  put  hit,"  said  Tump, 
admiringly. 

"Why  do  you  suppose  he  bought  in  the  Tom  wit 
tract  and  sold  me  the  Dillihay  place?" 

Asked  for  an  opinion.  Tump  began  twiddling  his 
military  medal  and  corrugated  the  skin  on  his  inch- 
high  brow. 


BIRTHRIGHT  57 

"Now  you  puts  it  to  me  lak  dat,  Peter,"  he  an- 
swered with  importance,  *T  wonders  ef  dat  gimlet- 
haided  white  man  ain't  put  some  stoppers  in  dat  deed 
he  guv  you.     He  mout  of." 

Such  remarks  as  that  from  Tump  always  annoyed 
Peter.  Tump's  intellectual  method  was  to  talk  sense 
just  long  enough  to  gain  his  companion's  ear,  and 
then  produce  something  absurd  and  quash  the  tenta- 
tive interest. 

Siner  turned  away  from  him  and  said,  "Piffle." 

Tump  was  defensive  at  once. 

"'T  ain't  piffle,  either !     I 's  talkin'  sense,  nigger." 

Peter  *  shrugged,  and  walked  a  little  way  in  silence, 
but  the  soldier's  nonsense  stuck  in  his  brain  and  wor- 
ried him.     Finally  he  turned,  rather  irritably. 

"Stoppers — what  do  you  mean  by  stoppers?" 

Tump  opened  his  jet  eyes  and  their  yellowish  whites. 
"I  means  nigger-stoppers,"  he  reiterated,  amazed  in 
his  turn. 

"Negro-stoppers — "  Peter  began  to  laugh  sardon- 
ically, and  abruptly  quit  the  conversation. 

Such  rank  superiority  irritated  the  soldier  to  the 
nth  power. 

"Look  heah,  black  man,  I  knows  I  is  right.  Heah, 
lemme  look  at  dat-aiuh,  deed.  Maybe  I  can  find  'em. 
I  knows  I  suttinly  is  right." 

Peter  walked  on,  paying  no  attention  to  the  request 
until  Tump  caught  his  arm  and  drew  him  up  short. 

"Look  heah,   nigger,"   said   Tump,   in  a  different 


58  BIRTHRIGHT 

tone,  **I  faded  dad  deed  fuh  ten  iron  men,  an'  I  reckon 
I  got  a  once-over  comin'  fuh  my  money." 

The  soldier  was  plainly  mobilized  and  ready  to 
attack.  To  fight  Tump,  to  fight  any  negro  at  all, 
would  be  Peter's  undoing;  it  would  forfeit  the  moral 
leadership  he  hoped  to  gain.  Moreover,  he  had  no 
valid  grounds  for  a  disagreement  with  Tump.  He 
passed  over  the  deed,  and  the  two  negroes  moved  on 
their  way  to  Niggertown. 

Tump  trudged  forward  with  eyes  glued  to  paper, 
his  face  puckered  in  the  unaccustomed  labor  of  read- 
ing. His  thick  lips  moved  at  the  individual  letters,  and 
constructed  them  bunglingly  into  syllables  arid  words. 
He  was  trying  to  uncover  the  verbal  camouflage  by 
which  the  astute  white  brushed  away  all  rights  of  all 
black  men  whatsoever. 

To  Peter  there  grew  up  something  sadly  comical 
in  Tump's  efforts.  The  big  negro  might  well  typify 
all  the  colored  folk  of  the  South,  struggling  in  a  web 
of  law  and  custom  they  did  not  understand,  misplac- 
ing their  suspicions,  befogged  and  fearful.  A  certain 
penitence  for  having  been  irritated  at  Tump  softened 
Peter. 

'That's  all  right,  Tump;  there  's  nothing  to  find." 

At  that  moment  the  soldier  began  to  bob  his  head. 

"Eh!  eh!  eh!  W-wait  a  minute!"  he  stammered. 
* Whut  dis  ?  B'lieve  I  done  foun'  it !  I  sho  is !  Heah 
she  am  I  Heah 's  dis  nigger-stopper,  jes  lak  I  tol' 
you!"     Tump  marked  a  sentence  in  the  guaranty  of 


BIRTHRIGHT  59 

the  deed  with  a  rusty  forefinger  and  looked  up  at 
Peter  in  mixed  triumph  and  accusation. 

Peter  leaned  over  the  deed,  amused. 

"Let 's  see  your  mare's  nest." 

"Well,  she  'fo'  God  is  thaiuh,  an*  you  sho  let  loose 
a  hundud  dollars  uv  our  'ciety's  money,  an'  got  nothin' 
fuh  hit  but  a  piece  o'  paper  wid  a  nigger-stopper  on 
hit!" 

Tump's  voice  was  so  charged  with  contempt  that 
Peter  looked  with  a  certain  uneasiness  at  his  find.  He 
read  this  sentence  switched  into  the  guaranty  of  the 
indenture : 

Be  it  further  understood  and  agreed  that  no  negro, 
black  man,  A  fro- American,  mulatto,  quadroon,  octoroon, 
or  any  person  whatsoever  of  colored  blood  or  lineage, 
shall  enter  upon,  seize,  hold,  occupy,  reside  upon,  till, 
cultivate,  own  or  possess  any  part  or  parcel  of  said  prop- 
erty, or  gamer,  cut,  or  harvest  therefrom,  any  of  the  usu- 
fruct, timber,  or  emblements  thereof,  but  shall  by  these 
presents  be  estopped  from  so  doing  forever." 

Tump  Pack  drew  a  shaken,  unhappy  breath. 

"Now,  I  reckon  you  see  whut  a  nigger-stopper  is." 

Peter  stood  in  the  sunshine,  looking  at  the  estoppel 
clause,  his  lips  agape.  Twice  he  read  it  over.  It  held 
something  of  the  quality  of  those  comprehensive  curses 
that  occur  in  the  Old  Testament.  He  moistened  his 
lips  and  looked  at  Tump. 

"Why,  that  can't  be  legal."  His  voice  sounded 
empty  and  shallow^ 


6o  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Legal!  'Fo'  Gawd,  nigger,  whauh  you  been  to 
school  all  dese  yeahs,  never  to  heah  uv  a  nigger-stopper 
befo'!" 

"But — but  how  can  a  stroke  of  the  pen,  a  mere  ges- 
ture, estop  a  whole  class  of  American  citizens  for- 
ever?" cried  Peter,  with  a  rising  voice.  "Turn  it 
around.  Suppose  they  had  put  in  a  line  that  no  white 
man  should  own  that  land.  It — it 's  empty !  I  tell 
you,  it 's  mere  words  !'* 

Tump  cut  into  his  diatribe:  "No  use  talkin'  lak 
dat.  Our  'ciety  thought  you  wuz  a  aidjucated  nigger. 
We  did  n't  think  no  white  man  could  put  nothin'  over 
on  you." 

"Education!"  snapped  Siner.  "Education  isn't 
supposed  to  keep  you  away  from  shysters!" 

"Keep  you  away  fum  'em !"  cried  Tump,  in  a  scan- 
dalized voice.  "  'Fo'  Gawd,  nigger,  you  don'  know 
nothin' !  O'  co'se  a  aidjucation  ain't  to  keep  you  away 
fum  shysters;  hit 's  to  mek  you  one  'uv  'em!" 

Peter  stood  breathing  irregularly,  looking  at  his 
deed.  A  determination  not  to  be  cheated  grew  up  and 
hardened  in  his  nerves.  With  unsteady  hands  he 
refolded  his  deed  and  put  it  into  his  pocket,  then  he 
turned  about  and  started  back  up  the  village  street 
toward  the  bank. 

Tump  stared  after  him  a  moment  and  presently 
called  out: 

"Heah,  nigger,  whut  you  gwine  do?"     A  moment 


BIRTHRIGHT  6i 

later  he  repeated  to  his  friend's  back:  "Look  heah, 
nigger,  I  'vise  you  ag'inst  anything  you  's  gwine  do, 
less  'n  you  's  ready  to  pass  in  yo'  checks !"  As  Peter 
strode  on  he  Hfted  his  voice  still  higher:  'Teter! 
Hey,  Peter,  I  sho'  'vise  you  'g'inst  anything  you  's 
'gwine  do!" 

A  pulse  throbbed  in  Siner's  temples.  The  wrath  of 
the  cozened  heated  his  body.  His  clothes  felt  hot.  As 
he  strode  up  the  trash-piled  street,  the  white  merchants 
lolling  in  their  doors  began  smiling.  Presently  a  laugh 
broke  out  at  one  end  of  the  street  and  was  caught  up 
here  and  there.  It  was  the  undying  minstrel  jest,  the 
comedy  of  a  black  face.  Dawson  Bobbs  leaned  against 
the  wide  brick  entrance  of  the  livery-stable,  his  red 
face  balled  into  shining  convexities  by  a  quizzical  smile. 

"Hey,  Peter,"  he  drawled,  winking  at  old  Mr.  Tom- 
wit,  "been  inve&tin'  in  real  estate?"  and  broke  into 
Homeric  laughter. 

As  Peter  passed  on,  the  constable  dropped  casually 
in  behind  the  brown  man  and  followed  him  up  to  the 
bank. 

To  Peter  Siner  the  walk  up  to  the  bank  v^as  an 
emotional  confusion.  He  had  a  dim  consciousness  that 
voices  said  things  to  him  along  the  way  and  that  there 
was  laughter.  All  this  was  drowned  by  desperate 
thoughts  and  futile  plans  to  regain  his  lost  money, 
flashing  through  his  head.  The  cashier  would  ex- 
change the  money  for  the  deed ;  he  would  enter  suit  and 


62  BIRTHRIGHT 

carry  it  to  the  Supreme  Court;  he  would  show  the 
money  had  not  been  his,  he  had  had  no  right  to  buy; 
he  would  beg  the  cashier.  His  head  seemed  to  spin 
around  and  around.  ^ 

He  climbed  the  steps  into  the  Planter's  Bank  and 
opened  the  screen-door.  The  cashier  glanced  up 
brie%,  but  continued  busily  at  his  ledger. 

Peter  walked  shakenly  to  the  barred  window  in  the 
grill. 

"Mr.  Hooker.'^ 

"Very  busy  now,  Peter,"  came  the  high  voice. 

"I  want  to  know  about  this  deed." 

The  banker  was  nimbly  setting  down  long  rows  of 
figures.     "No  time  to  explain  deeds,  Peter." 

"But — but  there  is  a  clause  in  this  deed,  Mr.  Hodker, 
estopping  colored  persons  from  occupying  the  Dillihay 
place." 

"Precisely.  What  about  it  ?"  Mr.  Hooker  snapped 
out  his  inquiry  and  looked  up  suddenly,  catching  Peter 
full  in  the  face  with  his  narrow-set  eyes.  It  was  the 
equivalent  of  a  blow. 

"According  to  this,  I — I  can't  establish  a  school  on 
it." 

"You  cannot." 

"Then  what  can  I  do  with  it?"  cried  Peter. 

"Sell  it.  You  have  what  lawyers  call  a  cloud  on  the 
title.  Sell  it.  I  '11  give  you  ten  dollars  for  your  right 
in  it,  just  to  clear  up  my  title." 


BIRTHRIGHT  63 

A  queer  trembling  seized  Peter.  The  little  banker 
turned  into  a  fantastic  caricature  of  a  man.  His 
hatchet  face,  close-set  eyes,  harsh,  straight  hair,  and 
squeaky  voice  made  him  seem  like  some  prickly, 
dried-up  gnome  a  man  sees  in  a  fever. 

At  that  moment  the  little  wicket-door  of  the  window 
opened  under  the  pressure  of  Peter's  shoulder.  In- 
side, on  the  desk,  lay  neat  piles  of  bills  of  all  denomina- 
tions, ready  to  be  placed  in  the  vault.  In  a  nervous 
tremor  Peter  dropped  in  his  blue-covered  deed  and 
picked  up  a  hundred-dollar  bill. 

*T — I  won't  trade,"  he  jibbered.  *Tt — it  was  n't  my 
money.  Here 's  your  deed !"  Peter  was  moving 
away.     He  felt  a  terrific  impulse  to  run,  but  he  walked. 

The  banker  straightened  abruptly.  **Stop  there, 
Peter!"  he  screeched. 

At  that  moment  Dawson  Bobbs  lounged  in  at  the 
door,  with  his  perpetual  grin  balling  up  his  broad  red 
face.     He  had  a  toothpick  in  his  mouth. 

**  'S  matter?"  he  asked  casually. 

"Peter  there,"  said  the  banker,  with  a  pale,  sharp 
face,  "does  n't  want  to  stick  to  his  trade.  He  is  just 
walking  off  with  one  of  my  hundred-dollar  bills." 

"Sick  o'  yo'  deal,  Peter?"  inquired  Bobbs,  smiling 
^and  shifting  the  toothpick.  He  bit  down  on  it. 
"Well,  whut-chu  want  done,  Henry?" 

"Oh,"  hesitated  the  cashier  in  a  quandary,  "nothing, 
I  suppose.     Siner  was  excited ;  you  know  how  niggers 


64  BIRTHRIGHT 

are.  We  can't  afford  to  send  every  nigger  to  the  pen 
that  breaks  the  law."  He  stood  studying  Peter  out  of 
his  close-set  eyes.  **Here  's  your  deed,  Peter."  He 
shoved  it  back  under  the  grill.  "And  lemme  give  you  a 
little  friendly  advice.  I  'd  just  run  an  ordinary  nigger 
school  if  I  was  you.  This  higher  education  don't  seem 
to  make  a  nigger  much  smarter  when  he  comes  back 
than  when  he  starts  out."  A  faint  smile  bracketed  the 
thin  nose. 

Dawson  Bobbs  roared  with  sudden  appreciation, 
took  the  bill  from  Peter's  fingers,  and  pushed  it  back 
under  the  grill. 

The  cashier  picked  up  the  money,  casually.  He  con- 
sidered a  moment,  then  reached  for  a  long  envelop. 
As  he  did  so,  the  incident  with  Peter  evidently  passed 
from  his  mind,  for  his  hatchet  face  lighted  up  as  with 
some  inward  illumination. 

''Bobbs,"  he  said  warmly,  "that  was  a  great  sermon 
Brother  Blackwater  preached.  It  made  me  want  to 
help  according  as  the  Lord  has  blessed  me.  Could  n't 
you  spare  five  dollars,  Bobbs,  to  go  along  with  this?" 

The  constable  tried  to  laugh  and  wriggle  away,  but 
the  cashier's  gimlet  eyes  kept  boring  him,  and  even- 
tually he  fished  out  a  five-dollar  bill  and  handed  it  in. 
Mr.  Hooker  placed  the  two  bills  in  the  envelop,  sealed 
it,  and  handed  it  to  the  constable. 

"Jest  drop  that  in  the  post-office  as  you  go  down  the 
Street,  Bobbs,"  he  directed  in  his  high  voice. 


BIRTHRIGHT  65 

Peter  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  type-written  address. 
It  was 

Rev.  Lemuel  Hardiman, 
c/o  United  Missions, 
Katuako  Post, 

Bahr  el  Ghazal, 
Sudan, 

East  Africa. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  white  population  of  Hooker's  Bend  was 
much  amused  and  gratified  at  the  outcome  of 
the  Hooker-Siner  land  deal.  Every  one  agreed  that 
the  cashier's  chicanery  was  a  droll  and  highly  original 
turn  to  give  to  a  negro  exclusion  clause  drawn  into 
a  deed.  Then,  too,  it  involved  several  legal  points 
highly  congenial  to  the  Hooker's  Bend  intellect. 
Could  the  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Benevolence  recover 
their  hundred  dollars?  Could  Henry  Hooker  force 
them  to  pay  the  remaining  seven  hundred  ?  Could  not 
Siner  establish  his  school  on  the  Dillihay  place  regard- 
less of  the  clause,  since  the  cashier  would  be  estopped 
from  obtaining  an  injunction  by  his  own  instrument? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Sons  and  Daughters  of 
Benevolence  sent  a  committee  to  wait  on  Mr.  Hooker 
to  see  what  action  he  meant  to  take  on  the  notes  that 
paid  for  his  spurious  deed.  This  brought  another  har- 
vest of  rumors.  Street  gossip  reported  that  Henry  had 
compromised  for  this,  that,  and  the  other  amount,  that 
he  would  not  compromise,  that  he  had  persuaded  the 
fool  niggers  into  signing  still  other  instruments.  Peter 
never  knew  the  truth.     He  was  not  on  the  committee. 

But  high  above  the  legal  phase  of  interest  lay  the 
warming  fact  that  Peter  Siner,  a  negro  graduate  of 

66 


BIRTHRIGHT  67 

Harvard,  on  his  first  tilt  in  Hooker's  Bend  affairs  had 
ridden  to  a  fall.  This  pleased  even  the  village  women, 
whose  minds  could  not  follow  the  subtle  trickeries  of 
legal  disputation.  The  whole  affair  simply  proved 
what  the  white  village  had  known  all  along :  you  can't 
educate  a  nigger.  Hooker's  Bend  warmed  with  pleas- 
ure that  half  of  its  population  was  ineducable. 

White  sentiment  in  Hodker's  Bend  reacted  strongly 
on  Niggertown.  Peter  Siner's  prestige  was  no  more. 
The  cause  of  higher  education  for  negroes  took  a 
mighty  slump.  Junius  Gholston,  a  negro  boy  who  had 
intended  to  go  to  Nashville  to  attend  Fisk  University, 
reconsidered  the  matter,  packed  away  his  good  clothes, 
put  on  overalls,  and  shipped  down  the  river  as  a 
roustabout  instead. 

In  the  Siner  cabin  old  Caroline  Siner  berated  her 
boy  for  his  stupidity  in  ever  trading  with  that  low- 
down,  twisting  snake  in  the  grass,  Henry  Hooker. 
She  alternated  this  with  floods  of  tears.  Caroline  had 
no  sympathy  for  her  offspring.  She  said  she  had 
thrown  away  years  of  self-sacrifice,  years  of  washing, 
a  thousand  little  comforts  her  money  would  have 
bought,  all  for  nothing,  for  less  than  nothing,  to  ship  a 
fool  nigger  up  North  and  to  ship  him  back. 

Of  all  Niggertown,  Caroline  was  the  most  unfor- 
giving because  Peter  had  wounded  her  in  her  pride. 
Every  other  negro  in  the  village  felt  that  genial  satis- 
faction in  a  great  man's  downfall  that  is  balm  to  small 
souls.     But  the  old  mother  knew  not  this  consolation. 


68  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter  was  her  proxy.     It  was  she  who  had   fallen. 

The  only  person  in  Niggertown  who  continued  ami- 
able to  Peter  Siner  was  Cissie  Dildine.  The  octoroon, 
perhaps,  had  other  criteria  by  which  to  judge  a  man 
than  his  success  or  mishap  in  dealing  with  a  pettifogger. 

Two  or  three  days  after  the  catastrophe,  Cissie  made 
an  excursion  to  the  Siner  cabin  with  a  plate  of  cookies. 
Cissie  was  careful  to  place  her  visit  on  exactly  a  nor- 
mal footing.  She  brought  her  little  cakes  in  the  role  of 
one  who  saw  no  evil,  spoke  no  evil,  and  heard  no  evil. 
But  somehow  Cissie's  visit  increased  the  old  woman's 
wrath.  She  remained  obstinately  in  the  kitchen,  and 
made  remarks  not  only  audible,  but  arresting,  through 
the  thin  partition  that  separated  it  from  the  poor  living- 
room. 

Cissie  was  hardly  inside  when  a  voice  stated  that  it 
hated  to  see  a  gal  running  after  a  man,  trying  to  bait 
him  with  a  lot  of  f  um-diddles. 

Cissie  gave  Peter  a  single  wide-eyed  glance,  and 
then  attempted  to  ignore  the  bodiless  comment. 

"Here  are  some  cooikies,  Mr.  Siner,"  began  the  girl, 
rather  nervously.  "I  thought  you  and  Ahnt  Caro- 
lin'— " 

"Yeah,  I  'magine  dey's  fuh  me!"  jeered  the  spec- 
tral voice. 

"Might  like  them,"  concluded  the  girl,  with  a  little 
gasp. 

*T  suttinly  don'  want  no  light-fingered  hussy  ma'yin* 


In  the  Siner  cabin  old  Caroline  Siner  berated  her  boy 


BIRTHRIGHT  69 

my  son/*  proceeded  the  voice,  *'an'  de  whole  Dildine 
fambly  '11  bear  watchin'.'' 

"Won't  you  have  a  seat?"  asked  Peter,  exquisitely 
uncomfortable. 

Cissie  handed  him  her  plate  in  confusion. 

"Why,  no,  Mr.  Siner,"  she  hastened  on,  in  her  care- 
ful grammar,  "I  just — ran  over  to — " 

"To  fling  herse'f  in  a  nigger's  face  'cause  he  's  been 
North  and  got  made  a  fool  uv,"  boomed  the  hidden 
censor. 

"I  must  go  now,"  gasped  Cissie. 

Peter  made  a  harried  gesture. 

"Wait — wait  till  I  get  my  hat." 

He  put  the  plate  down  with  a  swift  glance  around 
for  his  hat.  He  found  it,  and  strode  to  the  door,  fol- 
lowing the  girl.  The  two  hurried  out  into  the  street, 
followed  by  indistinct  strictures  from  the  kitchen. 
Cissie  breathed  fast,  with  open  lips.  They  moved 
rapidly  along  the  semicircular  street  almost  with  a 
sense  of  flight.  The  heat  of  the  early  autumn  sun 
stung  them  through  their  clothes.  For  some  distance 
they  walked  in  a  nervous  silence,  then  Cissie  said : 

"Your  mother  certainly  hates  me,  Peter." 

"No,"  said  Peter,  trying  to  soften  the  situation; 
"it's  me;  she's  terribly  hurt  about — "  he  nodded  to- 
ward the  white  section — "that  business." 

Cissie  opened  her  clear  brown  eyes. 

"Your  own  mother  turned  against  you!" 


70  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Oh,  she  has  a  right  to  be/'  began  Peter,  defensively. 
"I  ought  to  have  read  that  deed.  It 's  amazing  I 
did  n't,  but  I — I  really  was  n't  expecting  a  trick.  Mr. 
Hooker  seemed  so — so  sympathetic — "  He  came  to 
a  lame  halt,  staring  at  the  dust  through  which  they 
picked  their  way. 

"Of  course  you  weren't  expecting  tricks!"  cried 
Cissie,  warmly.  "The  whole  thing  shows  you  're  a 
gentleman  used  to  dealing  with  gentlemen.  But  of 
course  these  Hooker's  Bend  negroes  will  never  see 
that!" 

Peter,  surprised  and  grateful,  looked  at  Cissie. 
Her  construction  of  the  swindle  was  more  flattering 
than  any  apology  he  had  been  able  to  frame  for  him- 
self. 

"Still,  Cissie,  I  ought  to  have  used  the  greatest 
care — " 

"I  'm  not  talking  about  what  you  *ought,'  "  stated 
the  octoroon,  crisply;  "I  'm  talking  about  what  you 
are.  When  it  comes  to  *ought,*  we  colored  people 
must  get  what  we  can,  any  way  we  can.  We  fight 
from  the  bottom."  The  speech  held  a  viperish  quality 
which  for  a  moment  caught  the  brown  man's  atten- 
tion ;  then  he  said : 

"One  thing  is  sure,  I  've  lost  my  prestige,  whatever 
it  was  worth." 

The  girl  nodded  slowly. 

"With  the  others  you  have,  I  suppose." 

Peter  glanced  at  Cissie.     The  temptation  was  strong 


BIRTHRIGHT  71 

to  give  the  conversation  a  personal  turn,  but  he  con- 
tinued on  the  general  topic : 

**Well,  perhaps  it 's  just  as  well.  My  prestige  was 
a  bit  too  flamboyant,  Cissie.  All  I  had  to  do  was  to 
mention  a  plan.  The  Sons  and  Daughters  did  n't  even 
discuss  it.  They  put  it  right  through.  That  wasn't 
healthy.  Our  whole  system  of  society,  all  democracies 
are  based  on  discussion.     Our  old  Witenagemot — " 

"But  it  was  n't  our  old  Witenagemot,"  said  the  girl. 

'Well— no,"  admitted  the  mulatto,  "that 's  true." 

They  moved  along  for  some  distance  in  silence,  when 
the  girl  asked : 

"What  are  you  going  ta  do  now,  Peter?" 

"Teach,  and  keep  working  for  that  training-school," 
stated  Peter,  almost  belligerently.  "You  did  n't  expect 
a  little  thing  like  a  hundred  dollars  to  stop  me,  did 
you  ?" 

"No-0-0,"  conceded  Cissie,  with  some  reserve  of 
judgment  in  her  tone.  Presently  she  added,  "You 
could  do  a  lot  better  up  North,  Peter." 

"For  whom?" 

"Why,  yourself,"  said  the  girl,  a  little  surprised. 

Siner  nodded. 

"I  thought  all  that  out  before  I  came  back  here, 
Cissie.  A  friend  of  mine  named  Farquhar  offered  me 
a  place  with  him  up  in  Chicago, — a  string  of  garages. 
You  'd  like  Farquhar,  Cissie.  He  's  a  materialist  with 
an  absolutely  inexorable  brain.  He  mechanizes  the 
universe.     I  told  him  I  couldn't  take  his  offer.     Tt  's 


72  BIRTHRIGHT 

like  this,'  I  argued:  'if  every  negro  with  a  little  ability 
leaves  the  South,  our  people  down  there  will  never  pro- 
gress/ It 's  really  that  way,  Cissie,  it  takes  a  certain 
mental  atmosphere  to  develop  a  people  as  a  whole. 
;  A  few  individuals  here  and  there  may  have  the  strength 
to  spring  up  by  themselves,  but  the  run  of  the  people 
— no.  I  believe  one  of  the  greatest  curses  of  the 
1  colored  race  in  the  South  is  the  continual  draining  of 
\its  best  individuals  North.  Farquhar  argued — "  Just 
T:hen  Peter  saw  that  Cissie  was  not  attending  his  dis- 
course. She  was  walking  at  his  side  in  a  respectful 
silence.  He  stopped  talking,  and  presently  she  smiled 
and  said : 

"You  have  n't  noticed  my  new  brooch,  Peter." 
She  lifted  her  hand  to  her  bosom,  and  twisted  the  face 
of  the  trinket  toward  him.  "You  ought  n't  to  have 
made  me  show  it  to  you  after  you  recommended  it 
yourself."     She  made  a  little  moue  of  disappointment. 

It  was  a  pretty  bit  of  old  gold  that  complimented  the 
creamy  skin.  Peter  began  admiring  it  at  once,  and, 
negro  fashion,  rather  overstepped  the  limits  white 
beaux  set  to  their  praise,  as  he  leaned  close  to  her. 

At  the  moment  the  two  were  passing  one  of  the 
oddest  houses  in  Niggertown.  It  was  a  two-story 
cabin  built  in  the  shape  of  a  steamboat.  A  little  cupola 
represented  a  pilot-house,  and  two  iron  chimneys  served 
for  smoke-stacks^ 

This  queer  building  had  been  built  by  a  negro  steve- 
dore because  of  a  deep  admiration  for  the  steamboats 


BIRTHRIGHT  73 

on  which  he  had  made  his  living.  Instead  of  steps 
at  the  front  door,  this  boat-like  house  had  a  stage- 
plank.  As  Peter  strolled  down  the  street  with  Cissie, 
admiring  her  brooch,  and  suffused  with  a  sense  of  her 
nearness,  he  happened  to  glance  up,  and  saw  Tump 
Pack  walk  down  the  stage-plank,  come  out,  and  wait 
for  them  at  the  gate. 

There  was  something  grim  in  the  ex-soldier's  face 
and  in  the  set  of  his  gross  lips  as  the  two  came  up,  but 
the  aura  of  the  girl  prevented  Peter  from  paying  much 
attention  to  it.  As  the  two  reached  Tump,  Peter  had 
just  lifted  his  hand  to  his  hat  when  Tump  made  a 
quick  step  out  at  .the  gate,  in  front  of  them,  and 
swung  a  furious  blow  at  Peter's  head. 

Cissie  screamed.  Siner  staggered  back  with  flames 
dancing  before  his  eyes.  The  soldier  lunged  after  his 
toppling  man  with  gorilla-like  blows.  Hot  pains  shot 
through  Peter's  body.  Hisr  head  roared  like  a  gong. 
The  sunlight  danced  about  him  in  flashes.  The  air  was 
full  of  black  fists  smashing  him,  and  not  five  feet  away, 
the  bullet  head  of  Tump  Pack  bobbed  this  way  and 
that  in  the  rapid  shifts  of  his  attack.  A  stab  of  pain 
cut  off  Peter's  breath.  He  stood  with  his  diaphragm 
muscles  tense  and  paralyzed,  making  convulsive  efforts 
to  breathe.  At  that  moment  he  glimpsed  the  convexity 
of  Tump's  stomach.  He  drop-kicked  at  it  with 
foot-ball  desperation.  Came  a  loud  explosive  groan. 
Tump  seemed  to  rise  a  foot  or  two  in  air,  turned  over, 
and  thudded  down  on  his  shoulders  in  the  dust.     The 


74  BIRTHRIGHT 

soldier  made  no  attempt  to  rise,  but  curled  up,  twisting 
in  agony. 

Peter  stood  in  the  dust-cloud,  wabbly,  with  roaring 
head.  His  open  mouth  was  full  of  dust.  Then  he 
became  aware  that  negroes  were  running  in  from 
every  direction,  shouting.  Their  voices  whooped  out 
what  had  happened,  who  it  was,  who  had  licked. 
Tump  Pack's  agonized  spasms  brought  howls  of  mirth 
from  the  black  fellows.  Negro  women  were  in  the 
crowd,  grinning,  a  little  frightened,  but  curious.  Some 
were  in  Mother-Hubbards ;  one  had  her  hair  half 
combed,  one  side  in  a  kinky  mattress,  the  other  lying 
flat  and  greased  down  to  her  scalp. 

When  Peter  gradually  became  able  to  breathe  and 
could  think  at  all,  there  was  something  terrible  to  him 
in  Tump's  silent  attack  and  in  this  extravagant  black 
mirth  over  mere  suffering.  Cissie  was  gone, — ^had 
fled,  no  doubt,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fight. 

The  prostrate  man's  tortured  abdomen  finally  al- 
lowed him  to  twist  around  toward  Peter.  His  eyes 
were  popped,  and  seemed  all  yellows  and  streaked  with 
swollen  veins. 

'T  '11  git  you  fuh  dis,"  he  wheezed,  spitting  dust. 
"You  did  n'  fight  fair,  you—" 

The  black  chorus  rolled  their  heads  and  pounded 
one  another  in  a  gale  of  merriment. 

Peter  Siner  turned  away  toward  his  home  filled  with 
sick  thought.  He  had  never  realized  so  clearly  the 
open  sore  of  Niggertown  life  and  its  great  need  of 


BIRTHRIGHT  75 

healing,  yet  this  very  episode  would  further  bar  him, 
Peter,  from  any  constructive  work.  He  foresaw,  too 
plainly,  how  the  white  town  and  Niggertown  would 
react  to  this  fight.  There  would  be  no  discrimination 
in  the  scandal.  He,  Peter  Siner,  would  be  grouped 
with  the  boot-leggers  and  crap-shooters  and  women- 
chasers  who  filled  Niggertown  with  their  brawls.  As 
a  matter  of  simple  fact,  he  had  been  fighting  with  an- 
other negro  over  a  woman.  That  he  was  subjected  to 
an  attack  without  warning  or  cause  would  never  be- 
come a  factor  in  the  analysis.     He  knew  that  very  well. 

Two  of  Peter's  teeth  were  loose;  his  left  jaw  was 
swelling;  his  head  throbbed.  With  that  queer  per- 
versity of  human  nerves,  he  ikept  biting  his  sore  teeth 
together  as  he  walked  along. 

When  he  reached  home,  his  mother  met  him  at 
the  door.  Thanks  to  the  swiftness  with  which  gossip 
spreads  among  black  folk,  she  had  already  heard  of  the 
fight,  and  incidentally  had  formed  her  judgment  of  the 
matter.  Now  she  looked  in  exasperation  at  her  son's 
swelling  face. 

"I  'cla'  'fo'Gawd! — ain't  been  home  a  week  befo' 
he  's  fightin'  over  a  nigger  wench  lak  a  roustabout !" 

Peter's  head  throbbed  so  he  could  hardly  make  out 
the  details  of  Caroline's  face. 

"But,  Mother — "  he  began  defensively,  *T — " 

"Me  sweatin'  over  de  wash-pot,"  the  negress  went 
on,  "so  's  you  could  go  up  North  an'  learn  a  HI  sense; 
heah  you  comes  back  chasin'  a  dutty  slut !" 


76  BIRTHRIGHT 

**But,  Mother,"  he  begged  thickly,  'T  was  simply 
walking  home  with  Miss  Dildine." 

"Miss  Dildine!  Miss  Dildine!"  exploded  the  pon- 
derous woman,  with  an  erasing  gesture.  *'Ef  you 
means  dat  stuck-up  fly-by-night  Cissie  Dildine,  say  so, 
and  don'  stan'  thaiuh  mouthin',  'Miss  Dildine,  Miss 
Dildine' !" 

''Mother,"  asked  Peter,  thickly,  through  his  swelling 
mouth,  "do  you  want  to  know  what  did  happen?" 

'T  knows.  I  toF  you  to  keep  away  fum  dat  hussy. 
She  's  a  fool  'bout  her  bright  color  an'  straight  hair. 
Needn't  be  givin'  herse'f  no  airs!" 

Peter  stood  in  the  doorway,  steadying  himself  by  the 
jamb.  The  world  still  swayed  from  the  blows  he 
had  received  on  the  head. 

"What  girl  would  you  be  willing  for  me  to  go  with?" 
he  asked  in  faint  satire. 

"Heah  in  Niggertown?" 

Peter  nodded.  The  movement  increased  his  head- 
ache. 

"None  a-tall.  No  Niggertown  wench  a-tall.  When 
you  mus'  ma'y,  I 's  'speckin'  you  to  go  off  summuhs 
an'  pick  yo'  gal,  lak  you  went  off  to  pick  yo'  aidjuca- 
tion."  She  swung  out  a  thick  arm,  and  looked  at 
Peter  out  of  the  corner  of  her  eyes,  her  head  tilted  to 
one  side,  as  negresses  do  when  they  become  dramatically 
serious? 

Petei*  left  his  mother  to  her  stare  and  went  to  his  own 
room.     This  constant  implication  among  Niggertown 


BIRTHRIGHT  ^j 

inhabitants  that  Niggertown  and  all  it  held  was  worth- 
less, mean,  and  unhuman  depressed  Peter.  The  mu- 
latto knew  the  real  trouble  with  Niggertown  was  it 
had  adopted  the -whtt^-village's  estimate  of  it.  The 
sentiment  of  the  white  village  was  overpowering  among 
the  imitative  negroes.  The  black  folk  looked  into  the 
eye^bf  the  whites  and  saw  themselves  reflected  as  chaff 
and  skum  and  slime,  and  no  human  being  ever  suggested 
that  they  were  aught  else. 

Peter's  room  was  a  rough  shed  papered  with  old 
newspapers.  All  sorts  of  yellow  scare-heads  streaked 
his  walls.  Hanging  up  was  a  crayon  enlargement  of 
his  mother,  her  broad  face  as  unwrinkled  as  an  ^gg 
and  drawn  almost  white,  for  the  picture  agents  have 
discovered  the  only  way  to  please  their  black  patrons 
is  to  make  their  enlargements  as  nearly  white  as  pos- 
sible. 

In  one  corner,  on  a  |iome-made  book-rack,  stood 
Peter's  library, — a  Greek 5jbook  or  two,  an  old  calculus, 
a  sociology,  a  psychology,  a  philosophy,  and  a  score  of 
other  volumes  he  had  accumulated  in  his  four  college 
years.  As  Peter,  his  head  aching,  looked  at  these,  he 
realized  how  immeasurably  removed  he  was  from  the 
cool  abstraction  of  the  study. 

The  brown  man  sat  down  in  an  ancient  rocking-chair 
by  the  window,  leaned  back,  and  closed  his  eyes.  His 
blood  still  whispered  in  his  ears  from  his  fight.  Not- 
withstanding his  justification,  he  gradually  became 
filled  with  self-loathing.     To  fight — to  hammer  and 


78  BIRTHRIGHT 

kick  in  Niggertown's  dust — over  a  girl!     It  was  an 
indignity. 

Peter  shifted  his  position  in  his  chair,  and  his 
thoughts  took  another  trail.  Tump's  attack  had  been 
sudden  and  silent,  much  like  a  bulldog's.  The  possibil- 
ity of  a  simple  friendship  between  a  woman  and  a  man 
never  entered  Tump's  head ;  it  never  entered  any  Nig- 
gertown  head.  Here  all  attraction  was  reduced  to  the 
simplest  terms  of  sex.  Niggertown  held  no  delicate 
intimacies  or  reserves.  Two  youths  could  not  go  with 
the  same  girl.  Black  women  had  no  very  great  powers 
of  choice  over  their  suitors.  The  strength  of  a  man's 
arm  isolated  his  sweetheart.  That  dici  not  seem  right, 
resting  the  power  of  successful  mating  entirely  upon 
brawn.  f 

As  Peter  sat  thinking  it  over,  it  came  to  him  that  the 
progress  of  any  race  depended,  finally,  upon  the  woman 
having  complete  power  of  choosing  her  mate.  It  is 
woman  alone  who  consistently  places  the  love  accent 
upon  other  matters  than  mere  flesh  and  muscle.  Only 
woman  has  much  sex  selectiveness,  or  is  inclined  to 
select  individuals  with  qualities  of  mind  and  spirit. 

For  millions  of  years  these  instinctive  spiritualizers 
of  human  breeding  stock  have  been  hampered  in  their 
choice  of  mates  by  the  unrestrained  right  of  the  fighting 
male.  Indeed,  the  great  constructive  work  of  chivalry 
in  the  middle  ages  was  to  lay,  unconsciously,  the  cor- 
ner-stone of  modem  civilization  by  resigning  to  the 
woman  the  power  of  choosing  from  a  group  of  males. 


BIRTHRIGHT  79 

Siner  stirred  in  his  chair,  surprised  at  whither  his 
reverie  had  lead  him.  He  wondered  how  he  had 
stumbled  upon  these  thoughts.  Had  he  read  them  in 
a  book?  In  point  of  fact,  a  beating  administered  by 
Tump  Pack  had  brought  the  brown  man  the  first  orig- 
inal idea  he  had  entertained  in  his  life. 

By  this  time,  Peter's  jaw  had  reached  its  maximum 
swelling  and  was  eased  somewhat.  He  looked  out  of 
his  little  window,  wondering  whether  Cissie  Dildine 
would  choose  him — or  Tump  Pack. 

Peter  was  surprised  to  find  blue  dusk  peering  through 
his  panes.  All  the  scare-heads  on  his  walls  had  lapsed 
into  a  common  obscurity.  As  he  rose  slowly,  so  as  not 
to  start  his  head  hurting  again,  he  heard  three  rapid 
pistol  shots  in  the  cedar  glade  between  Niggertown  and 
the  white  village.  He  knew  this  to  be  the  time-honored 
signal  of  boot-leggers  announcing  that  illicit  whisky 
was  for  sale  in  the  blackness  of  the  glade. 


CHAPTER  IV 

NEXT  day  the  Siner-Pack  fight  was  the  focus  of 
news  interest  in  Hooker's  Bend.  White  mis- 
tresses extracted  the  story  from  their  black  maids,  and 
were  amused  by  it  or  deprecated  Cissie  Dildine's 
morals  as  the  mood  moved  them. 

Along  Main  Street  in  front  of  the  village  stores,  the 
merchants  and  hangers-on  discussed  the  affair.  It 
was  diverting  that  a  graduate  of  Harvard  should  come 
back  to  Hooker's  Bend  and  immediately  drop  into  such 
a  fracas.  Old  Captain  Renfrew,  one-time  attorney  at 
law  and  representative  of  his  county  in  the  state  legis- 
lature, sat  under  the  mulberry  in  front  of  the  livery- 
stable  and  plunged  into  a  long  monologue,  with  old  Mr. 
Tom  wit  as  listener,  on  the  uneducability  of  the  black 
race. 

"Take  a  horse,  sir,"  expounded  the  captain ;  "a  horse 
can  be  trained  to  add  and  put  its  name  together  out  of 
an  alphabet,  but  no  horse  could  ever  write  a  promissory 
note  and  figure  the  interest  on  it,  sir.  Take  a  dog. 
I  Ve  known  dogs,  sir,  that  could  bring  your  mail  from 
the  post-ofBce,  but  I  never  saw  a  dog  stop  on  the  way 
home,  sir,  to  read  a  post-card." 

Here  the  old  ex-attorney  spat  and  renewed  the  to- 
bacco in  a  black  brier,  then  proceeded  to  draw  the 

80 


BIRTHRIGHT  8i 

parallel  between  dogs  and  horses  and  Peter  Siner  newly- 
returned  from  Harvard. 

"God'lmighty  has  set  his  limit  on  dogs,  horses,  and 
niggers,  Mr.  Tomwit.  Thus:  far  and  no  farther. 
Take  a  nigger  baby  at  birth;  a  nigger  baby  has  no 
fontanelles.  It  has  no  window  toward  heaven.  Its 
skull  is  sealed  up  in  darkness.  The  nigger  brain 
can  never  expand  and  absorb  the  universe,  sir.  It  can 
never  rise  on  the  wings  of  genius  and  weigh  the  stars, 
nor  compute  the  swing  of  the  Pleiades.  Thus  far  and 
no  farther !     It 's  congenital. 

"Now,  take  this  Peter  Siner  and  his  disgraceful 
fight  over  a  nigger  wench.  Would  you  expect  an 
educated  stud  horse  to  pay  no  attention  to  a  mare,  sir  ? 
You  can  educate  a  stud  till — " 

"But  hold  on!"  interrupted  the  old  cavalryman. 
*T  've  known  as  gentlemanly  stallions  as — as  anybody !" 

The  old  attorney  cleared  his  throat,  momentarily 
taken  aback  at  this  failure  of  his  metaphor.  However 
he  rallied  with  legal  suppleness : 

"You  are  talking  about  thoroughbreds,  sir." 

"I  am,  sir." 

"Good  God,  Tomwit !  you  don't  imagine  I  'm  com- 
paring a  nigger  to  a  thoroughbred,  sir !" 

On  the  street  corners,  or  piled  around  on  cotton- 
bales  down  on  the  wharf,  the  negro  men  of  the  village 
discussed  the  fight.  It  was  for  the  most  part  a  purely 
technical  discussion  of  blows  and  counters  and  kicks, 
and  of  the  strange  fact  that  a  college  education  failed 


8^  BIRTHRIGHT 

to  enable  Siner  utterly  to  annihilate  his  adversary. 
Jim  Pink  Staggs,  a  dapper  gentleman  of  ebony 
blackness,  of  pin-stripe  flannels  and  blue  serge  coat — 
altogether  a  gentleman  of  many  parts — sat  on  one  of 
the  bales  and  indolently  watched  an  old  black  crone 
fishing  from  a  ledge  of  rocks  just  a  little  way  below  the 
wharf -boat.  Around  Jim  Pink  lounged  and  sprawled 
black  men  and  youths,  stretching  on  the  cotton-bales 
like  cats  in  the  sunshine. 

Jim  Pink  was  discussing  Peter's  education. 

J^I  'fo'  GaAvd  kain't  see  no  use  goin'  off  lak  dat  an* 
den  comin'  back  atf  lettin'  a  white  man  cheat  you 
out'n  yo'  hide  an'  taller,  an'  lettin'  a  black  man  beat 
you  up  tuU  you  has  to  kick  him  in  the  spivit.  Ef  a 
aidjucation  does  you  any  good  a-tall,  you  'd  be  boun'  to 
beat  de  white  man  at  one  en'  uv  de  line,  or  de  black 
man  at  de  udder.  Ef  Peter  ain't  to  be  f oun'-  at  eider 
en',  wha  is  he?" 

"Um-m-m!"  "Eh-h-h!"  "You  sho  spoke  a  moufful, 
Jim  Pink!"  came  an  assenting  chorus  from  the  bales. 

Eventually  such  gossip  died  away  and  took  another 
flurry  when  a  report  went  abroad  that  Tump  Pack  was 
carrying  a  pistol  and  meant  to  shoot  Peter  on  sight. 
Then  this  in  turn  ceased  to  be  news  and  of  human 
interest.  It  clung  to  Peter's  mind  longer  than  to  any 
other  person's  in  Hooker's  Bend,  and  it  presented  to 
the  brown  man  a  certain  problem  in  casuistry. 

Should  he  accede  to  Tump  Pack's  possession  of 
Cissie  Dildine  and  give  up  seeing  the  girl?     Such  a 


BIRTHRIGHT  83 

course  cut  across  all  his  fine-spun  theory  about  women 
having  free  choice  of  their  mates.  However,  the  Har- 
vard man  could  not  advocate  a  socialization  of  court- 
ship when  he  himself  would  be  the  first  beneficiary. 
The  prophet  whose  finger  points  self  ward  is  damned. 
Furthermore,  all  Niggertown  would  side  with  Tump 
Pack  in  such  a  controversy.  It  was  no  uncommon 
thing  for  the  very  negro  women  to  fight  over  their 
beaux  and  husbands.  As  for  any  social  theory  chang- 
ing this  regime,  in  the  first  place  the  negroes  could  n't 
understand  the  theory ;  in  the  second,  it  would  have  no 
effect  if  they  could.  Actions  never  grow  out  of 
theories;  theories  grow  out  of  actions.  A  theory  is  a 
looking-glass  that  reflects  the  past  and  makes  it  look 
like  the  future,  but  the  glass  really  hides  the  future,  and 
when  humanity  comes  to  a  turn  in  its  course,  there  is 
always  a  smash-up,  and  a  blind  groping  for  the  lost 
path. 

Now,  in  regard  to  Cissie  Dildine,  Peter  was  not  pre- 
cisely afraid  of  Tump  Pack,  but  he  could  not  clear  his 
mind  of  the  fact  that  Tump  had  been  presented  with  a 
medal  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  for  killing 
four  men.  Good  sense  and  a  care  for  his  reputation 
and  his  skin  told  Peter  to  abandon  his  theory  of  free 
courtship  for  the  time  being.  This  meant  a  renuncia- 
tion of  Cissie  Dildine ;  but  he  told  himself  he  renounced 
very  little.  He  had  no  reason  to  think  that  Cissie  cared 
a  picayune  about  him. 

Peter's  work  kept  him  indoors  for  a  number  of  days 


84  BIRTHRIGHT 

following  the  encounter.  He  was  reviewing  some 
primary  school  work  in  order  to  pass  a  teacher's  ex- 
amination that  would  be  held  in  Jonesboro,  the  county 
seat,  in  about  three  weeks. 

To  the  uninitiated  it  may  seem  strange  to  behold  a 
Harvard  graduate  stuck  down  day  after  day  poring 
over  a  pile  of  dog-eared  school-books — third  arith- 
metics, primary  grammars,  beginners'  histories  of 
Tennessee,  of  the  United  States,  of  England ;  physiol- 
ogy, hygiene.  It  may  seem  queer.  But  when  it  comes 
to  standing  a  Wayne  County  teacher's  examination,  the 
specific  answers  to  the  specific  questions  on  a  dozen  old 
examination  slips  are  worth  all  the  degrees  Harvard 
ever  did  confer. 

So,  in  his  newspapered  study,  Peter  Siner  looked  up 
long  lists  of  questions,  and  attempted  to  memorize  the 
answers.  But  the  series  of  missteps  he  had  made  since 
returning  to  Hooker's  Bend  besieged  his  brain  and 
drew  his  thoughts  from  his  catechism.  It  seemed 
strange  that  in  so  short  a  time  he  should  have  wandered 
so  far  from  the  course  he  had  set  for  himself.  His 
career  in  Niggertown  formed  a  record  of  slight  mis- 
takes, but  they  were  not  to  be  undone,  and  their  com- 
bined force  had  swung  him  a  long  way  from  the  course 
he  had  plotted  for  himself.  There  was  no  way  to  ex- 
plain. Hooker's  Bend  would  judge  him  by  the  sheer 
surface  of  his  works.  What  he  had  meant  to  do,  his 
dreams  and  altruisms,  they  would  never  surmise.  That 
was  the  irony  of  the  thing. 


BIRTHRIGHT  85 

Then  he  thought  of  Cissie  Dildine  who  did  under- 
stand him.  This  thought  might  have  been  Cissie's  cue 
to  enter  the  stage  of  Peter's  mind.  Her  oval,  creamy 
face  floated  between  Peter's  eyes  and  the  dog-eared 
primer.  He  thought  of  Cissie  wistfully,  and  of  her 
lonely  fight  for  good  English,  good  manners,  and  good 
taste.     There  was  a  pathos  about  Cissie. 

Peter  got  up  from  his  chair  and  looked  out  at  his 
high  window  into  the  early  afternoon.  He  had  been 
poring  over  primers  for  three  days,  stuffing  the  most 
heterogeneous  facts.  His  head  felt  thick  and  slightly 
feverish.  Through  his  window  he  saw  the  side  of 
another  negro  cabin,  but  by  looking  at  an  angle  east- 
ward he  could  see  a  field  yellow  with  corn,  a  valley,  and, 
beyond,  a  hill  wooded  and  glowing  with  the  pageantry 
of  autumn.  He  thought  of  Cissie  Dildine  again,  of 
walking  with  her  among  the  burning  maples  and  the 
golden  elms.  He  thought  of  the  restfulness  such  a 
walk  with  Cissie  would  bring. 

As  he  mused,  Peter's  soul  made  one  of  those  sharp 
liberating  movements  that  occasionally  visit  a  human 
being.  The  danger  of  Tump  Pack's  jealousy,  the  loss 
of  his  prestige,  the  necessity  of  learning  the  specific 
answers  to  the  examination  questions,  all  dropped  away 
from  him  as  trivial  and  inconsequent.  He  turned  from 
the  window,  put  away  his  books  and  question-slips, 
picked  up  his  hat,  and  moved  out  briskly  through  his 
mother's  room  toward  the  door. 

The  old  woman  in  the  kitchen  must  have  heard  him, 


86  BIRTHRIGHT 

for  she  called  to  him  through  the  partition,  and  a  mo- 
ment later  her  bulky  form  filled  the  kitchen  entrance. 
She  wiped  her  hands  on  her  apron  and  looked  at  him 
accusingly. 

"Wha  you  gwine,  son?" 

'Tor  a  walk." 

The  old  negress  tilted  her  head  aslant  and  looked 
fixedly  at  him. 

"You  's  gwine  to  dat  Cissie  Dildine's,   Peter." 

Peter  looked  at  his  mother,  surprised  and  rather  dis- 
concerted that  she  had  guessed  his  intentions  from  his 
mere  footsteps.  The  young  man  changed  his  plans  for 
his  walk,  and  began  a  diplomatic  denial: 

"No,  I  'm  going  to  walk  by  myself.  I  'm  tired ;  I  'm 
played  out." 

"Tired?"  repeated  his  mother,  doubtfully.  "You 
ain't  done  nothin'  but  set  an'  turn  th'ugh  books  an' 
write  on  a  lil  piece  o'  paper." 

Peter  was  vaguely  amused  in  his  weariness,  but 
thought  that  he  concealed  his  mirth  from  his  mother. 

"That  gets  tiresome  after  a  while." 

She  grunted  her  skepticism.  As  Peter  moved  for 
the  door  she  warned  him  : 

"Peter,  you  knows  ef  Tump  Pack  sees  you,  he 's 
gwine  to  shoot  you  sho !" 

"Oh,  no  he  won't ;  that 's  Tump's  talk." 

"Talk !  talk !  Whut  's  matter  wid  you,  Peter?  Dat 
nigger  done  git  crowned  fuh  killin'  fo'  men!"  She 
stood   staring   at   him   with   white   eyes.     Then   she 


BIRTHRIGHT  87 

urged,  "Now,  look  heah,  Peter,  come  along  an'  eat 
yo'  supper." 

"No,  I  really  need  a  walk.  I  won't  walk  through 
Niggertown.     I  '11  walk  out  in  the  woods." 

"I  jes  made  some  salmon  coquettes  fuh  you  whut  '11 
spile  ef  you  don'  eat  'em  now." 

"I  did  n't  know  you  were  making  croquettes,"  said 
Peter,  with  polite  interest. 

"Well,  I  is.  I  gotta  can  o'  salmon  fum  Miss  Mollie 
Brownell  she  'd  opened  an'  could  n't  quite  use.  I  doc- 
tered  'em  up  wid  a  HI  vinegar  an'  sody,  an'  dey  is  'bout 
as  pink  as  dey  ever  wuz." 

A  certain  uneasiness  and  annoyance  came  over  Peter 
at  this  persistent  use  of  unwholesome  foods. 

"Look  here.  Mother,  you  're  not  using  old  canned 
goods  that  have  been  left  over?" 

The  old  negress  stood  looking  at  him  in  silence,  but 
lost  her  coaxing  expression. 

"I  've  told  and  told  you  about  using  any  tainted  or 
impure  foods  that  the  white  people  can't  eat." 

"Well,  whut  ef  you  is?" 

"If  it 's  too  bad  for  them,  it 's  too  bad  for  you!" 

Caroline  made  a  careless  gesture. 

"Good  Lawd,  boy !  I  don'  'speck  to  eat  whut 's  good  j 
fuh  me!  All  I  says  is,  'Grub,  keep  me  alive.  Ef  you/ 
do  dat,  you  done  a  good  day's  wuck.'  " 

Peter  was  disgusted  and  shocked  at  his  mother's  flip- 
pancy. Modern  colleges  are  atheistic,  but  they  do 
exalt    three    gods, — food,    cleanliness,    and    exercise. 


88  BIRTHRIGHT 

Now  here  was  Peter^s  mother  blaspheming  one  of  his 
trinity. 

"I  wish  you  *d  let  me  know  when  you  want  any- 
thing, Mother.  I  '11  get  it  fresh  for  you."  His  words 
were  filial  enough,  but  his  tone  carried  his  irritation. 

The  old  negress  turned  back  to  the  kitchen. 

''Huh,  boy!  you  been  fotch  up  on  lef '-overs/'  she 
said,  and  disappeared  through  the  door. 

Peter  walked  to  the  gate,  let  himself  out,  and  started 
off  on  his  constitutional.  His  tiff  with  his  mother 
renewed  all  his  nervousness  and  sense  of  failure.  His 
litany  of  mistakes  renewed  their  dolor  in  his  mind. 

An  autumn  wind  was  blowing,  and  long  plumes  of 
dust  whisked  up  out  of  the  curving  street  and  swept 
over  the  ill-kept  yards,  past  the  cabins,  and  toward  the 
sere  fields  and  chromatic  woods.  The  wind  beat  at 
the  brown  man ;  the  dust  whispered  against  his  clothes, 
made  him  squint  his  eyes  to  a  crack  and  tickled  his 
nostrils  at  each  breath. 

When  Peter  had  gone  two  or  three  hundred  yards, 
he  became  aware  that  somebody  was  walking  immedi- 
ately behind  him.  Tump  Pack  popped  into  his  mind. 
He  looked  over  his  shoulder  and  then  turned.  Through 
the  veils  of  flying  dust  he  made  out  some  one,  and  a 
moment  later  identified  not  Tump  Pack,  but  the  gan- 
gling form  of  Jim  Pink  Staggs,  clad  in  a  dark-blue 
sack-coat  and  white  flannel  trousers  with  pin  stripes. 
It  was  the  sort  of  costume  affected  by  interlocutors  of 
minstrel  shows;  it  had  a  minstrel  trigness  about  it. 


BIRTHRIGHT  89 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Jim  Pink  was  a  sort  of  semi- 
professional  minstrel.  Ordinarily,  he  ran  a  pressing- 
shop  in  the  Niggertown  crescent,  but  occasionally  he 
impressed  all  the  dramatic  talent  of  Niggertown  and 
really  did  take  the  road  with  a  minstrel  company. 
These  barn-storming  expeditions  reached  down  into 
Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Arkansas.  Sometimes  they 
proved  a  great  success,  and  the  darkies  rode  back  sev- 
eral hundred  dollars  ahead.  Sometimes  they  tramped 
back. 

Jim  Pink  hailed  Peter  with  a  wave  of  his  hand  and  a 
grotesque  displacement  of  his  mouth  to  one  side  of  his 
face,  which  he  had  found  effective  in  his  minstrel 
buffoonery. 

"Whut  you  raisin'  so  much  dus'  about?"  he  called 
out  of  the  corner  of  his  mouth,  while  looking  at  Peter 
out  of  one  half -closed  eye. 

Peter  shook  his  head  and  smiled. 

"Thought  it  mout  be  Mister  Hooker  deliverin'  dat 
Ian'  you  bought."  Jim  Pink  flung  his  long,  flexible 
face  into  an  imitation  of  convulsed  laughter,  then  next 
moment  dropped  it  into  an  intense  gravity  and  declared, 
"  'Dus'  thou  art,  to  dus'  returnest.'  "  The  quotation 
seemed  fruitless  and  silly  enough,  but  Jim  Pink  tucked 
his  head  to  one  side  as  if  listening  intently  to 
himself,  then  repeated  sepulchrally,  "  *Dus'  thou  art,  to 
dus'  returnest.'  By  the  way,  Peter,"  he  broke  off 
cheerily,  "you  ain't  happen  to  see  Tump  Pack,  is  you?" 

"No,"  said  Peter,  unamused. 


90  BIRTHRIGHT 

*Ts  he  borrowed  a  gun  fum  you?"  inquired  the 
minstrel,  solemnly. 

"No-o."  Peter  looked  questioningly  at  the  clown 
through  half -closed  eyes. 

"Huh,  now  dat  's  funny."  Jim  Pink  frowned,  and 
pulled  down  his  loose  mouth  and  seemed  to  study.  He 
drew  out  a  pearl-handled  knife,  closed  his  hand  over 
it,  blew  on  his  fist,  then  opened  the  other  hand,  and 
exhibited  the  knife  lying  in  its  palm,  with  the  blade 
open.  He  seemed  surprised  at  the  change  and  began 
cleaning  his  finger-nails.  Jim  Pink  was  the  magician 
at  his  shows. 

Peter  waited  patiently  for  Jim  Pink  to  impart  his 
information,  "Well,  what 's  the  idea?"  he  asked  at  last. 

"Don'  know.  'Pears  lak  dat  knife  won't  stay  in 
any  one  han'."     He  looked  at  it,  curiously. 

"I  mean  about  Tump,"  said  Peter,  impatiently. 

"O-o-oh,  yeah;  you  mean  'bout  Tump.  Well,  I 
thought  Tump  mus'  uv  borrowed  a  gun  fum  you.  He 
lef  Hobbett's  corner  wid  a  great  big  forty-fo',  inquirin' 
wha  you  is."  Just  then  he  glanced  up,  looked  penetrat- 
ingly through  the  dust-cloud,  and  added,  "Why,  I 
b'lieve  da'  's  Tump  now." 

With  a  certain  tightening  of  the  nerves,  Peter  fol- 
lowed his  glance,  but  made  out  nothing  through  the 
fogging  dust.  When  he  looked  around  at  Jim  Pink 
again,  the  buffoon's  face  was  a  caricature  of  immense 
mirth.     He  shook  it  sober,  abruptly,  minstrel  fashion. 

"Maybe  I 's  mistooken,"  he  said  solemnly.     "Tump 


BIRTHRIGHT  91 

did  start  over  heah  wid  a  gun,  but  Mister  Dawson 
Bobbs  done  tuk  him  up  fuh  ca'yin'  concealed  squid- 
julums;  so  Tump's  done  los'  dat  freedom  uv  motion 
in  de  pu'suit  uv  happiness  gua'anteed  us  niggers  an' 
white  folks  by  the  Constitution  uv  de  Newnighted 
States  uv  America."  Here  Jim  Pink  broke  into  genu- 
ine laughter,  which  was  quite  a  different  thing  from  his 
stage  grimaces.     Peter  stared  at  the  fool  astonished. 

''Has  he  gone  to  jail?" 

''Not  prezactly." 

"Well — confound  it ! — exactly  what  did  happen,  Jim 
Pink?" 

"He  gone  to  Mr.  Cicero  Throgmartins'." 

"What  did  he  go  there  for?" 

"Couldn't  he'phisse'f." 

"Look  here,  you  tell  me  what 's  happened." 

"Mr.  Bobbs  ca'ied  Tump  thaiuh.  Y'  see,  Mr. 
Throgmartin  tried  to  hire  Tump  to  pick  cotton.  Tump 
did  n't  haf  to,  because  he  'd  jes  shot  fo'  natchels  in  a 
crap  game.  So  to-day,  when  Tump  starts  over  heah 
wid  his  gun,  Mr.  Bobbs  'resses  Tump.  Mr.  Throg- 
martin bails  him  out,  so  now  Tump  's  gone  to  pick 
cotton  fuh  Mr.  Throgmartin  to  pay  off'n  his  fine." 
Here  Jim  Pink  yelped  into  honest  laughter  at  Tump's 
undoing,  so  that  dust  got  into  his  nose  and  mouth  and 
set  him  sneezing  and  coughing. 

"How  long's  he  up  for?"  asked  Peter,  astonished 
and  immensely  relieved  at  this  outcome  of  Tump's 
expedition  against  himself. 


92  BIRTHRIGHT 

Jim  Pink  controlled  his  coughing  long  enough  to 
gasp: 

'Th-thutty  days,  ef  he  don'  run  off,"  and  fell  to 
laughing  again. 

Peter  Siner,  long  before,  had  adopted  the  literate 
man's  notion  of  what  is  humorous,  and  Tump's  mishap 
was  slap-stick  to  him.  Nevertheless,  he  did  smile. 
The  incident  filled  him  with  extraordinary  relief  and 
buoyancy.  At  the  next  corner  he  made  some  excuse  to 
Jim  Pink,  and  turned  off  up  an  alley. 

Peter  walked  along  with  his  shoulders  squared  and 
the  dust  peppering  his  back.  Not  till  Tump  was  lifted 
from  his  mind  did  he  realize  what  an  incubus  the 
soldier  had  been.  Peter  had  been  forced  into  a  position 
where,  if  he  had  killed  Tump,  he  would  have  been 
ruined;  if  he  had  not,  he  would  probably  have  been 
murdered.     Now  he  was  free — for  thirty  days. 

He  swung  along  briskly  in  the  warm  sunshine 
toward  the  multicolored  forest.  The  day  had  sud- 
denly become  glorious.  Presently  he  found  himself 
in  the  back  alleys  near  Cissie's  house.  He  was  passing 
chicken-houses  and  stables.  Hogs  in  open  pens  grunted 
expectantly  at  his  footsteps. 

Peter  had  not  meant  to  go  to  Cissie's  at  all,  but  now, 
when  he  saw  he  was  right  behind  her  dwelling,  she 
seemed  radiantly  accessible  to  him.  Still,  it  struck  him 
that  it  would  not  be  precisely  the  thing  to  call  on 
Cissie  immediately  after  Tump's  arrest.     It  might  look 


BIRTHRIGHT  93 

as  if —  Then  the  thought  came  that,  as  a  neighbor,  he 
should  stop  and  tell  Cissie  of  Tump's  misfortune.  He 
really  ought  to  offer  his  services  to  Cissie,  if  he  could 
do  anything.  At  Cissie's  request  he  might  even  aid 
Tump  Pack  himself.  Peter  got  himself  into  a  gener- 
ous glow  as  he  charged  up  a  side  alley,  around  to  a 
rickety  front  gate.  Let  Niggertown  criticize  as  it 
would,  he  was  braced  by  a  high  altruism. 

Peter  did  not  shout  from  the  gate,  as  is  the  fashion 
of  the  crescent,  but  walked  up  a  little  graveled  path 
lined  with  dusty  box-shrubs  and  tapped  at  the  unpainted 
door. 

Doors  in  Niggertown  never  open  straight  away  to 
visitors.  A  covert  inspection  first  takes  place  from 
the  edges  of  the  window-blinds. 

Peter  stood  in  the  whipping  dust,  and  the  caution 
of  the  inmates  spurred  his  impatience  to  see  Cissie. 
At  last  the  door  opened,  and  Cissie  herself  was  in  the 
entrance.  She  stood  quite  still  a  moment,  looking  at 
Peter  with  eyes  that  appeared  frightened. 

"I — I  was  n't  expecting  to  see  you,"  she  stammered. 

"No?     I  came  by  with  news,  Cissie." 

"News?"  She  seemed  more  frightened  than  ever. 
"Peter,  you — you  have  n't — "  She  paused,  regarding 
him  with  big  eyes. 

"Tump  Pack 's  been  arrested,"  explained  Peter, 
quickly,  sensing  the  tragedy  in  her  thoughts.  "I  came 
by  to  tell  you.  If  there  's  anything  I  can  do  for  you 
—or  him,  I  '11  do  it." 


94  BIRTHRIGHT 

His  altruistic  offer  sounded  rather  foolish  in  the 
actual  saying. 

He  cQuld  not  tell  from  her  face  whether  she  was 
glad  or  sorry. 

''What  did  they  arrest  him  for?" 

''Carrying  a  pistol." 

She  paused  a  moment. 

"Will  he — get  out  soon?" 

"He  's  sentenced  for  thirty  days." 

Cissie  dropped  her  hands  with  a  hopeless  gesture. 

"Oh,  isn't  this  all  sickening! — sickening!"  she  ex- 
claimed. She  looked  tired.  Ghosts  of  sleepless  nights 
circled  her  eyes.  Suddenly  she  said,  "Come  in.  Oh, 
do  come  in,  Peter."  She  reached  out  and  almost  pulled 
him  in.  She  was  so  urgent  that  Peter  might  have 
fancied  Tump  Pack  at  the  gate  with  his  automatic.  He 
did  glance  around,  but  saw  nobody  passing  except  the 
Arkwright  boy.  The  hobbledehoy  walked  down  the 
other  side  of  the  street,  hands  thrust  in  pockets,  with  the 
usual  discontented  expression  on  his  face. 

Cissie  slammed  the  door  shut,  and  the  two  stood 
rather  at  a  loss  in  the  sudden  gloom  of  the  hall.  Cissie 
broke  into  a  brief,  mirthless  laugh. 

"Peter,  it 's  hard  to  be  nice  in  Niggertown.  I — I 
just  happened  to  think  how  folks  would  gossip — you 
coming  here  as  soon  as  Tump  was  arrested." 

"Perhaps  I  'd  better  go,"  suggested  Peter,  uncom- 
fortably. 

Cissie  reached  up  and  caught  his  lapel. 


BIRTHRIGHT  95 

"Oh,  no,  don't  feel  that  way !  I  'm  glad  you  came, 
really.  Here,  let 's  go  through  this  way  to  the  arbor. 
It  is  n't  a  bad  place  to  sit." 

She  led  the  way  silently  through  two  dark  rooms. 
Before  she  opened  the  back  door,  Peter  could  hear 
Cissie's  mother  and  a  younger  sister  moving  around  the 
outside  of  the  house  to  give  up  the  arbor  to  Cissie  and 
her  company. 

The  arbor  proved  a  trellis  of  honeysuckle  over  the 
back  door,  with  a  bench  under  it.  A  film  of  dust  lay 
over  the  dense  foliage,  and  a  few  withered  blooms 
pricked  its  grayish  green.  The  earthen  floor  of  the 
arbor  was  beaten  hard  and  bare  by  the  naked  feet  of 
children. 

Cissie  sat  down  on  the  bench  and  indicated  a  place 
beside  her. 

*T  've  been  so  uneasy  about  you !  I  've  been  wonder- 
ing what  on  earth  you  could  do  about  it." 

'Tt  's  a  snarl,  all  right,"  he  said,  and  almost  immedi- 
ately began  discussing  the  peculiar  impasse  in  which 
his  difficulty  with  Tump  had  landed  him.  Cissie  sat 
listening  with  a  serious,  almost  tragic  face,  giving  a 
little  nod  now  and  then.  Once  she  remarked  in  her 
precise  way : 

*The  trouble  with  a  gentleman  fighting  a  rowdy,  the 
gentleman  has  all  to  lose  and  nothing  to  gain.  If  you 
don't  live  among  your  own  class,  Peter,  your  life  will 
simmer  down  to  an  endless  diplomacy." 

"You  mean  deceit,  I  suppose." 


96  BIRTHRIGHT 

"No,  I  mean  diplomacy.  But  that  isn^t  a  very 
healthy  frame  of  mind, — always  to  be  suppressing  and 
guarding  yourself." 

Peter  did  n't  know  about  that.  He  was  inclined  to 
argue  the  matter,  but  Cissie  wouldn't  argue.  She 
seemed  to  assume  that  all  of  her  statements  were 
axioms,  truths  reduced  to  the  simplest  possible  mental 
terms,  and  that  proof  was  unnecessary,  if  not  impos- 
sible.    So  the  topic  went  into  the  discard. 

"Been  baking  my  brains  over  a  lot  of  silly  little  exam, 
questions,"  complained  Peter.  "Can  you  trace  the 
circulation  of  the  blood?  I  think  it  leaves  the  grand 
central  station  through  the  right  aorta,  and  then,  after 
a  schedule  run  of  nine  minutes,  you  can  hear  it  coming 
up  the  track  through  the  left  ventricle,  with  all  the 
passengers  eager  to  get  off  and  take  some  refreshment 
at  the  lungs.  I  have  the  general  idea,  but  the  exact 
routing  gets  me."' 

Cissie  laughed  accommodatingly. 

"I  wonder  why  it 's  necessary  for  everybody  to  know 
that  once.  I  did.  I  could  follow  the  circulation  the 
right  way  or  backward." 

"Must  have  been  harder  backward,  going  against  the 
current." 

Cissie  laughed  again.  A  girl's  part  in  a  witty  con- 
versation might  seem  easy  at  first  sight.  She  has  only 
to  laugh  at  the  proper  intervals.  However,  these  in- 
tervals are  not  always  distinctly  marked.  Some  girls 
take  no  chances  and  laugh  all  the  time. 


BIRTHRIGHT  97 

Cissie's  appreciation  was  the  sedative  Peter  needed. 
The  rehef  of  her  laughter  and  her  presence  ran  along 
his  nerves  and  unkinked  them,  like  a  draft  of  Kentucky 
Special  after  a  debauch.  The  curves  of  her  cheek, 
the  tilt  of  her  head,  and  the  lift  of  her  dull-blue  blouse 
at  the  bosom  wove  a  great  rest  fulness  about  Peter. 
The  brooch  of  old  gold  glinted  at  her  throat.  The 
heavy  screen  of  the  arbor  gave  them  a  sweet  sense 
of  privacy.  The  conversation  meandered  this  way  and 
that,  and  became  quite  secondary  to  the  feeling  of  the 
girl's  nearness  and  sympathy.  Their  talk  drifted  back 
to  Peter's  mission  here  in  Hooker's  Bend,  and 
Cissie  was  saying: 

"The  trouble  is,  Peter,  we  are  out  of  our  milieu/' 
Some  portion  of  Peter's  brain  that  was  not  basking  in 
the  warmth  and  invitation  of  the  girl  answered  quite 
logically : 

"Yes,  but  if  I  could  help  these  people,  Cissie,  re- 
construct our  life  here  culturally — " 

Cissie  shook  her  head.     "Not  culturally." 

This  opposition  shunted  more  of  Peter's  thought  to 
the  topic  in  hand.     He  paused  interrogatively. 

"Racially,"  said  Cissie. 

"Racially?"  repeated  the  man,  quite  lost. 

Cissie  nodded,  looking  straight  into  his  eyes.  "You 
know  very  well,  Peter,  that  you  and  I  are  not — are 
not  anything  near  full  bloods.  You  know  that  racially 
we  don't  belong  in — Niggertown." 

Peter  never  knew  exactly  how  this  extraordinary 


98  BIRTHRIGHT 

sentence  had  come  about,  but  in  a  kind  of  breath  he 
realized  that  he  and  this  almost  white  girl  were  not  of 
Niggertown.  No  doubt  she  had  been  arguing  that  he, 
Peter,  who  was  one  sort  of  man,  was  trying  to  lead 
quite  another  sort  of  men  moved  by  different  racial  im- 
pulses, and  such  leading  could  only  come  to  confusion. 
He  saw  the  implications  at  once. 

It  was  an  extraordinary  idea,  an  explosive  idea,  such 
as  Cissie  seemed  to  have  the  faculty  of  touching  off. 
He  sat  staring  at  her. 

It  was  the  white  blood  in  his  own  veins  that  had 
sent  him  struggling  up  North,  that  had  brought  him 
back  with  this  flame  in  his  heart  for  his  own  people. 
It  was  the  white  blood  in  Cissie  that  kept  her  struggling 
to  stand  up,  to  speak  an  unbroken  tongue,  to  gather 
around  her  the  delicate  atmosphere  and  charm  of  a 
gentlewoman.  It  was  the  Caucasian  in  them  buried 
here  in  Niggertown.  It  was  their  part^of  the  tragedy 
of  millions  of  mixed  blood  in  the  South.. '  Their  com- 
mon problem,  a  feeling  of  their  joint  isolation,  brought 
Peter  to  a  sense  of  keen  and  tingling  nearness  to  the 
girl. 

She  was  talking  again,  very  earnestly,  almost  tremu- 
lously : 

"Why  don't  you  go  North,  Peter?  I  think  and 
think  about  you  staying  here.  You  simply  can't  grow 
up  and  develop  here.  And  now,  especially,  when 
everybody  doubts  you.     If  you  'd  go  North — " 


BIRTHRIGHT  99 

"What  about  you,  Cissie  ?  You  say  we  're  to- 
gether—" 

"Oh,  I  'm  a  woman.  We  have  n't  the  chance  to  do 
as  we  will." 

A  kind  of  titillation  went  over  Peter's  scalp  and 
body. 

"Then  you  are  going  to  stay  here  and  marry — 
Tump  ?"     He  uttered  the  name  in  a  queer  voice. 

Tears  started  in  Cissie's  eyes;  her  bosom  lifted  to 
her  quick  breathing. 

"I — I  don't  know  what  I  'm  going  to  do,"  she 
stammered  miserably. 

Peter  leaned  over  her  with  a  drumming  heart;  he 
heard  her  catch  her  breath. 

"You  don't  care  for  Tump?"  he  asked  with  a  dry 
mouth. 

She  gasped  out  something,  and  the  next  moment 
Peter  felt  her  body  sink  limply  in  his  groping  arms. 
They  clung  together  closely,  quiveringly.  Three 
nights  of  vigil,  each  thinking  miserably  and  wistfully 
of  the  other,  had  worn  the  nerves  of  both  man  and 
girl  until  they  were  ready  to  melt  together  at  a  touch. 
Her  soft  body  clinging  to  his  own,  the  little  nervous 
pressures  of  her  arms,  her  eased  breathing  at  his 
neck,  wiped  away  Siner's  long  sense  of  strain. 
Strength  and  peace  seemed  to  pour  from  her  being 
into  his  by  a  sort  of  spiritual  osmosis.  She  resigned 
her  head  to  his  palm  in  order  that  he  might  lift  her 


loo  BIRTHRIGHT 

lips  to  his  when  he  pleased.  After  all,  there  is  no 
way  for  a  man  to  rest  without  a  woman.  All  he  can 
do  is  to  stop  work. 

^For  a  long  time  they  sat  transported  amid  the 
dusty  honeysuckles  and  withered  blooms,  but  after  a 
while  they  began  talking  a  little  at  a  time  of  the  future, 
their  future.  They  felt  so  indissolubly  joined  that 
they  could  not  imagine  the  future  finding  them  apart. 
There  was  no  need  for  any  more  trouble  with  Tump 
Pack.  They  would  marry  quietly,  and  go  away  North 
to  live.  Peter  thought  of  his  friend  Farquhar.  He 
wondered  if  Farquhar's  attitude  would  be  just  the 
same  toward  Cissie  as  it  was  toward  him. 

''North,"  was  the  burden  of  the  octoroon's  dreams. 
They  would  go  North  to  Chicago.  There  were  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  negroes  in  Chicago,  a  city 
within  itself  three  times  the  size  of  Nashville.  Up 
North  she  and  Peter  could  go  to  theaters,  art  galleries, 
could  enter  any  church,  could  ride  in  street-cars,  rail- 
road-trains, could  sleep  and  eat  at  any  hotel,  live 
authentic  lives. 

It  was  Cissie  planning  her  emancipation,  planning  to 
escape  her  lifelong  disabilities. 

''Oh,  I  '11  be  so  glad !  so  glad !  so  glad !"  she  sobbed, 
and  drew  Peter's  head  passionately  down  to  her  deep 
bosom. 


CHAPTER  V 

PETER  SINER  walked  home  from  the  Dildine 
cabin  that  night  rather  dreading  to  meet  his 
mother,  for  it  was  late.  Cissie  had  served  sandwiches 
and  coffee  on  a  little  table  in  the  arbor,  and  then  had 
kept  Peter  hours  afterward.  Around  him  still  hung 
the  glamour  of  Cissie's  little  supper.  He  could  still 
see  her  rounded  elbows  that  bent  softly  backward  when 
she  extended  an  arm,  and  the  glimpses  of  her  bosom 
when  she  leaned  to  hand  him  cream  or  sugar.  She 
had  accomplished  the  whole  supper  in  the  white  man- 
ner, with  all  poise  and  daintiness.  In  fact,  no  one  is 
more  exquisitely  polite  than  an  octoroon  woman  when 
she  desires  to  be  polite,  when  she  elevates  the  sub- 
serviency of  her  race  into  graciousness. 

However,  the  pleasure  and  charm  of  Cissie  wer 
fading  under  the  approaching  abuse  that  Caroline  was 
sure  to  pour  upon  the  girl.  Peter  dreaded  it.  He 
walked  slowly  down  the  dark  semicircle,  planning  how 
he  could  best  break  to  his  mother  the  news  of  his  en- 
gagement. Peter  knew  she  would  begin  a  long  bill 
of  complaints, — how  badly  she  was  treated,  how  she 
had  sacrificed  herself,  her  comfort,  how  she  had 
washed  and  scrubbed.  She  would  surely  charge 
Cissie  with  being  a  thief  and  a  drab,  and  all  the  an- 

lOI 


ji 


I02  BI'I^THRIGHT 

nouncerngntS  of*  engagements  that  Peter  could  make 
would  never  induce  the  old  woman  to  soften  her  abuse. 
Indeed,  they  would  make  her  worse. 

So  Peter  walked  on  slowly,  smelling  the  haze  of 
dust  that  hung  in  the  blackness.  Out  on  the  Big  Hill, 
in  the  glade,  Peter  caught  an  occasional  glimmer  of 
light  where  crap-shooters  and  boot-leggers  were  be- 
ginning their  nightly  carousal. 

These  evidences  of  illicit  trades  brought  Peter  a 
thrill  of  disgust.  In  a  sort  of  clear  moment  he  saw 
that  he  could  not  keep  Cissie  in  such  a  sty  as  this. 
He  could  not  rear  in  such  a  place  as  this  any  children 
that  might  come  to  him  and  Cissie.  His  thoughts 
drifted  back  to  his  mother,  and  his  dread  of  her  tongue. 

The  Siner  cabin  was  dark  and  tightly  shut  when 
Peter  let  himself  in  at  the  gate  and  walked  to  the 
door.  He  stood  a  moment  listening,  and  then  gently 
pressed  open  the  shutter.  A  faint  light  burned  on  the 
inside,  a  night-lamp  with  an  old-fashioned  brass  bowl. 
It  sat  on  the  floor,  turned  low,  at  the  foot  of  his 
mother's  bed.  The  mean  room  was  mainly  in  shadow. 
The  old-style  four-poster  in  which  Caroline  slept  was 
an  indistinct  mound.  The  air  was  close  and  foul  with 
the  bad  ventilation  of  all  negro  sleeping-rooms.  The 
brass  lamp,  turned  low,  added  smoke  and  gas  to  the 
tight  quarters. 

The  odor  caught  Peter  in  the  nose  and  throat,  and 
once  more  stirred  up  his  impatience  with  his  mother's 
disregard  of  hygiene.     He  tiptoed  into  the  room  and 


BIRTHRIGHT  103 

decided  to  remove  the  lamp  and  open  the  high,  small 
window  to  admit  a  little  air.  He  moved  noiselessly 
and  had  stooped  for  the  lamp  when  there  came  a 
creaking  and  a  heavy  sigh  from  the  bed,  and  the  old 
negress  asked: 

"Is  dat  you,  son?" 

Peter  was  tempted  to  stand  perfectly  still  and  wait 
till  his  mother  dozed  again,  thus  putting  off  her  in- 
evitable tirade  against  Cissie ;  but  he  answered  in  a  low 
tone  that  it  was  he. 

"Whut  you  gwine  do  wid  dat  lamp,  son?" 

"Go  to  bed  by  it.  Mother." 

"Well,  bring  hit  back."  She  breathed  heavily,  and 
moved  restlessly  in  the  old  four-poster.  As  Peter 
stood  up  he  saw  that  the  patched  quilts  were  all  askew 
over  her  shapeless  bulk.  Evidently,  she  had  not  been 
resting  well. 

Peter's  conscience  smote  him  again  for  worrying  his 
mother  with  his  courtship  of  Cissie,  yet  what  could 
he  do?  If  he  had  wooed  any  other  girl  in  the  world, 
she  would  have  been  equally  jealous  and  grieved.  It 
was  inevitable  that  she  should  be  disappointed  and 
bitter;  it  was  bound  up  in  the  very  part  and  parcel  of 
her  sacrifice.  A  great  sadness  came  over  Peter.  He 
almost  wished  his  mother  would  berate  him,  but  she 
continued  to  lie  there,  breathing  heavily  under  her 
disarranged  covers.  As  Peter  passed  into  his  room, 
the  old  negress  called  after  him  to  remind  him  to  bring 
the  light  back  when  he  was  through  with  it. 


I04  BIRTHRIGHT 

This  time  something  in  her  tone  alarmed  Peter.  He 
paused  in  the  doorway. 

"Are  you  sick,  Mother?"  he  asked. 

The  old  woman  gave  a  yawn  that  changed  to  a 
groan. 

*T— I  ain't  feelin'  so  good." 

"What 's  the  matter,  Mother?" 

"My  stomach,  my — "  But  at  that  moment  her 
sentence  changed  to  an  inarticulate  sound,  and  she 
doubled  up  in  bed  as  if  caught  in  a  spasm  of  acute 
agony. 

Peter  hurried  to  her,  thoroughly  frightened,  and  saw 
sweat  streaming  down  her  face.  He  stared  down 
at  her. 

"Mother,  you  are  sick!  What  can  I  do?"  he  cried, 
with  a  man's  helplessness. 

She  opened  her  eyes  with  an  effort,  panting  now 
as  the  edge  of  the  agony  passed.  There  was  a  move- 
ment under  the  quilts,  and  she  thrust  out  a  rubber  hot- 
water  bottle. 

"Fill  it — fum  de  kittle,"  she  wheezed  out,  then  re- 
laxed into  groans,  and  wiped  clumsily  at  the  sweat 
on  her  shining  black  face. 

Peter  seized  the  bottle  and  ran  into  the  kitchen. 
There  he  found  a  brisk  fire  popping  in  the  stove  and 
a  kettle  of  water  boiling.  It  showed  him,  to  his 
further  alarm,  that  his  mother  had  been  trying  to 
minister  to  herself  until  forced  to  bed. 


BIRTHRIGHT  105 

The  man  scalded  a  finger  and  thumb  pouring  water 
into  the  flared  mouth,  but  after  a  moment  twisted  on 
the  top  and  hurried  into  the  sick-room. 

He  reached  the  old  negress  just  as  another  knife  of 
pain  set  her  writhing  and  sweating.  She  seized  the 
hot-water  bottle,  pushed  it  under  the  quilts,  and  pressed 
it  to  her  stomach,  then  lay  with  eyes  and  teeth  clenched 
tight,  and  her  thick  lips  curled  in  a  grin  of  agony. 

Peter  set  the  lamp  on  the  table,  said  he  was  going 
for  the  doctor,  and  started. 

The  old  woman  hunched  up  in  bed.  With  ^the 
penuriousness  of  her  station  and  sacrifices,  she  begged 
Peter  not  to  go ;  then  groaned  out,  *'Go  tell  Mars'  Ren- 
frew," but  the  next  moment  did  not  want  Peter  to 
leave  her. 

Peter  said  he  would  get  Nan  Berry  to  stay  while  he 
was  gone.  The  Berry  cabin  lay  diagonally  across  the 
street.  Peter  ran  over,  thumped  on  the  door,  and 
shouted  his  mother's  needs.  As  soon  as  he  received 
an  answer,  he  started  on  over  the  Big  Hill  toward  the 
white  town. 

Peter  was  seriously  frightened.  His  run  to  Dr. 
Jallup's,  across  the  Big  Hill,  was  a  series  of  renewed 
strivings  for  speed.  Every  segment  of  his  journey 
seemed  to  seize  him  and  pin  him  down  in  the  midst 
of  the  night  like  a  bug  caught  in  a  black  jelly.  He 
seemed  to  progress  not  at  all. 

Now  he  was  in  the  cedar  glade.     His  muffled  flight 


io6  BIRTHRIGHT 

drove  in  the  sentries  of  the  crap-shooters,  and  the 
gamesters  blinked  out  their  lights  and  listened  to  his 
feet  stumbling  on  through  the  darkness. 

After  an  endless  run  in  the  glade,  Peter  found  him- 
self on  top  of  the  hill,  amid  boulders  and  outcrops  of 
limestone  and  cedar-shrubs.  His  flash-light  picked 
out  these  objects,  limned  them  sharply  against  the 
blackness,  then  dropped  them  into  obscurity  again. 

He  tried  to  run  faster.  His  impatience  subdivided 
the  distance  into  yards  and  feet.  Now  he  was  ap- 
proaching that  boulder,  now  he  was  passing  it ;  now  he 
was  ten  feet  beyond,  twenty,  thirty.  Perhaps  his 
mother  was  dying,  alone  save  for  stupid  Nan  Berry. 

Now  he  was  going  down  the  hill  past  the  white 
church.  All  that  was  visible  was  its  black  spire  set 
against  a  web  of  stars.  He  was  making  no  speed  at 
all.  He  panted  on.  His  heart  hammered.  His  legs 
drummed  with  Lilliputian  paces.  Now  he  was  among 
the  village  stores,  all  utterly  black.  At  one  point  the 
echo  of  his  feet  chattered  back  at  him,  as  if  some  other 
futile  runner  strained  amid  vast  spaces  of  blackness. 

After  a  long  time  he  found  himself  running  up  a 
residential  street,  and  presently,  far  ahead,  he  saw  the 
glow  of  Dr.  Jallup's  porch  light.  Its  beam  had  the 
appearance  of  coming  from  a  vast  distance.  When 
he  reached  the  place,  he  flung  his  breast  against  the  top 
panel  of  the  doctor's  fence  and  held  on,  exhausted. 
He  drew  in  his  breath,  and  began  shouting,  ''Hello, 
Doctor  !'* 


BIRTHRIGHT  107 

Peter  called  persistently,  and  as  he  commanded  more 
breath,  he  called  louder  and  louder,  "Hello,  Doctor! 
Hello,  Doctor!  Hello,  Doctor!"  in  tones  edging  on 
panic. 

The  doctor's  house  might  have  been  dead.  Some- 
where a  dog  began  barking.  High  in  the  Southern 
sky  a  star  looked  down  remotely  on  Peter's  frantic 
haste.  The  black  man  stood  in  the  black  night  with 
his  cries:  "Hello,  Doctor!  Hello,  Doctor!  Hello, 
Doctor!" 

At  last,  in  despair,  he  tried  to  think  of  other  doctors. 
He  thought  of  telephoning  to  Jonesboro.  Just  as  he 
decided  he  must  turn  away  there  came  a  stirring  in  the 
dead  house,  a  flicker  of  light  appeared  on  the  inside 
now  here,  now  there;  it  steadied  into  a  tiny  beam  and 
approached  the  door.  The  door  opened,  and  Dr.  Jal- 
lup's  head  and  breast  appeared,  illuminated  against 
the  black  interior. 

"My  mother 's  sick.  Doctor,"  began  Peter,  in  im- 
mense relief. 

"Who  is  it?"  inquired  the  half-clad  man,  impassively. 

"Caroline  Siner ;  she  's  been  taken  with  a — " 

The  physician  lifted  his  light  a  trifle  in  an  effort  to 
see  Peter. 

"Lemme  see :  she  's  that  fat  nigger  woman  that  lives  I 
in  a  three-roomed  house — "  j 

"I  '11  show  you  the  way,"  said  Peter.  "She  's  very 
ill." 

The  half -dressed  man  shook  his  head. 


io8  BIRTHRIGHT 

"No,  Ca'line  Siner  owes  me  a  five-dollar  doctor's 
bill  already.  Our  county  medical  association  made  a 
rule  that  no  niggers  should — " 

With  a  drying  mouth,  Peter  Siner  stared  at  the  man 
of  medicine. 

"But,  my  God,  Doctor,'*  gasped  the  son,  *'I  '11  pay 
you—" 

"Have  you  got  the  money  there  in  your  pocket?" 
asked  Jallup,  impassively. 

A  sort  of  chill  traveled  deliberately  over  Peter's 
body  and  shook  his  voice. 

"N-no,  but  I  can  get  it — " 

"Yes,  you  can  all  get  it,"  stated  the  physician  in  dull 
irritation.  "I  'm  tired  of  you  niggers  running  up 
doctors'  bills  nobody  can  collect.  You  never  have 
more  than  the  law  allows;  your  wages  never  get  big 
enough  to  garnishee."  His  voice  grew  querulous  as 
he  related  his  wrongs.  "N"o,  I  'm  not  going  to  see 
Ca'line  Siner.  If  she  wants  me  to  visit  her,  let  her 
send  ten  dollars  to  cover  that  and  back  debts,  and 
I  '11 — "  The  end  of  his  sentence  was  lost  in  the  closing 
of  his  door.  The  light  he  carried  declined  from  a 
beam  to  a  twinkling  here  and  there,  and  then  vanished 
in  blackness.  Dr.  Jallup's  house  became  dead  again. 
The  little  porch  light  in  its  glass  box  might  have  been 
a  candle  burning  before  a  tomb. 

Peter  Siner  stood  at  the  fence,  licking  his  dry  lips, 
with  nerves  vibrating  like  a  struck  bell.  He  pushed 
himself  slowly  away  from  the  top  plank  and  found  his 


BIRTHRIGHT  109 

legs  so  weak  that  he  could  hardly  walk.  He  moved 
slowly  back  down  the  unseen  street.  The  dog  he  had 
disturbed  gave  a  few  last  growls  and  settled  into 
silence. 

Peter  moved  along,  wetting  his  dry  lips,  and  stirring 
feebly  among  his  dazed  thoughts,  hunting  some  other 
plan  of  action.  There  was  a  tiny  burning  spot  on  the 
left  side  of  his  occiput.  It  felt  like  a  heated  cambric 
needle  which  had  been  slipped  into  his  scalp.  Then  he 
realized  that  he  must  go  home,  get  ten  dollars,  and 
bring  them  back  to  Dr.  Jallup.  He  started  to  run,  but 
almost  toppled  over  on  his  leaden  legs. 

He  plodded  through  the  darkness,  retracing  the  end- 
less trail  to  Niggertown.  As  he  passed  a  dark  mass  of 
shrubbery  and  trees,  he  recalled  his  mother's  advice  to 
ask  aid  of  Captain  Renfrew.  It  was  the  old  Renfrew 
place  that  Peter  was  passing. 

The  negro  hesitated,  then  turned  in  at  the  gate  in  the 
bare  hope  of  obtaining  the  ten  dollars  at  once.  Inside 
the  gate  Peter's  feet  encountered  the  scattered  bricks 
of  an  old  walk.  The  negro  stood  and  called  Captain 
Renfrew's  name  in  a  guarded  voice.  He  was  not  at 
all  sure  of  his  action. 

Peter  had  called  twice  and  was  just  about  to  go 
when  a  lamp  appeared  around  the  side  of  the  house  on 
a  long  portico  that  extended  clear  around  the  building. 
Bathed  in  the  light  of  the  lamp  which  he  held  over  his 
head,  there  appeared  an  old  man  wearing  a  worn  dress- 
ing-gown. 


no  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Who  is  it?"  he  asked  in  a  wavery  voice. 

Peter  told  his  name  and  mission. 

The   old   Captain   continued  holding  up  his  light. 

"Oh,  Peter  Siner ;  Caroline  Siner  's  sick  ?  All  right, 
I  '11  have  Jallup  run  over;  I  '11  'phone  him." 

Peter  was  beginning  his  thanks  preparatory  to  go- 
ing, when  the  old  man  interrupted. 

"No,  just  stay  here  until  Jallup  comes  by  in  his  car. 
He  '11  pick  us  both  up.  It  '11  save  time.  Come  on 
inside.     What 's  the  matter  with  old  Caroline?" 

The  old  dressing-gown  led  the  way  around  the 
continuous  piazza  to  a  room  that  stood  open  and 
brightly  lighted  on  thq  north  face  of  the  old  house. 

A  great  relief  came  to  Peter  at  this  unexpected  suc- 
cor. He  followed  around  the  piazza,  trying  to  describe 
Caroline's  symptoms.  The  room  Peter  entered  was  a 
library,  a  rather  stately  old  room,  lined  with  books 
all  around  the  walls  to  about  as  high  as  a  man  could 
reach.  Spaces  for  doors  and  windows  were  let  in 
among  the  book-cases.  The  volumes  themselves 
seemed  composed  mainly  of  histories  and  old-fash- 
ioned scientific  books,  if  Peter  could  judge  from  a  cer- 
tain severity  of  their  bindings.  On  a  big  library  table 
burned  a  gasolene-lamp,  which  threw  a  brilliant  white- 
ness all  over  the  room.  The  table  was  piled  with  books 
and  periodicals.  Books  and  papers  were  heaped  on 
every  chair  in  the  study  except  a  deep  Morris  chair  in 
which  the  old  Captain  had  been  sitting.  A  big 
meridional  globe,  about  two  and  a  half  feet  in  diameter 


BIRTHRIGHT  in 

gleamed  through  a  film  of  dust  in  the  embrasure  of  a 
window.  The  whole  room  had  the  womanless  look  of 
a  bachelor's  quarters,  and  was  flavored  with  tobacco 
and  just  a  hint  of  whisky. 

Old  Captain  Renfrew  evidently  had  been  reading 
when  Peter  called  from  the  gate.  Now  the  old  man 
went  to  a  telephone  and  rang  long  and  briskly  to 
awaken  the  boy  who  slept  in  the  central  office.  Peter 
fidgeted  as  the  old  Captain  stood  with  receiver  to  ear. 

"Hard  to  wake."  The  old  gentleman  spoke  into  the 
transmitter,  but  was  talking  to  Peter.  "Don't  be  so 
uneasy,  Peter.  Human  beings  are  harder  to  kill  than 
you  think.'* 

There  was  a  kindliness,  even  a  fellowship,  in  Cap- 
tain Renfrew's  tones  that  spread  like  oil  over  Peter's 
raw  nerves.  It  occurred  to  the  negro  that  this  was  the 
first  time  he  had  been  addressed  as  an  authentic  human 
being  since  his  conversation  with  the  two  Northern  men 
on  the  Pullman,  up  in  Illinois.  It  surprised  him.  It 
was  sufficient  to  take  his  mind  momentarily  from  his 
mother.  He  looked  a  little  closely  at  the  old  man  at 
the  telephone.  The  Captain  wore  few  indices  of  kind- 
ness. Lines  of  settled  sarcasm  netted  his  eyes  and 
drooped  away  from  his  old  mouth.  The  very  swell  of 
his  full  temples  and  their  crinkly  veins  marked  a  sar- 
donic old  man. 

At  last  he  roused  central  over  the  wire,  and  im- 
pressed upon  him  the  necessity  of  creating  a  stridor  in 
Dr.  Jallup*s  dead  house,  and  a  moment  later  a  continued 


112  BIRTHRIGHT 

buzzing  in  the  receiver  betokened  the  operator's  efforts 
to  do  so. 

The  old  gentleman  turned  around  at  last,  holding  the 
receiver  a  little  distance  from  his  ear. 

*T  understand  you  went  to  Harvard,  Peter." 

"Yes,  sir."  Peter  took  his  eyes  momentarily  from 
the  telephone.  The  old  Southerner  in  the  dressing- 
gown  scrutinized  the  brown  man.  He  cleared  his 
throat. 

**You  know,  Peter,  it  gives  me  a — a  certain  satis- 
faction to  see  a  Harvard  man  in  Hooker's  Bend.  I  'm 
a  Harvard  man  myself." 

Peter  stood  in  the  brilliant  light,  astonished,  not  at 
Captain  Renfrew's  being  a  Harvard  man, — he  had 
known  that, — but  that  this  old  gentleman  was  telling 
the  fact  to  him,  Peter  Siner,  a  negro  graduate  of 
Harvard. 

It  was  extraordinary ;  it  was  tantamount  to  an  offer 
of  friendship,  not  patronage.  Such  an  offer  in  the 
South  disturbed  Peter's  poise;  it  touched  him  queerly. 
And  it  seemed  to  explain  why  Captain  Renfrew  had 
received  Peter  so  graciously  and  was  now  arranging 
for  Dr.  Jallup  to  visit  Caroline. 

Peter  was  moved  to  the  conventional  query,  asking 
in  what  class  the  Captain  had  been  graduated.  But 
while  his  very  voice  was  asking  it,  Peter  thought  what 
a  strange  thing. it  was  that  he,  Peter  Siner,  a  negro,  and 
this  lonely  old  gentleman,  his  benefactor,  were  spiritual 


The  old  gentleman  turned  around  at  last 


BIRTHRIGHT  113 

brothers,  both  sprung  from  the  loins  of  Harvard,  that 
ancient  mother  of  souls. 

From  the  darkness  outside.  Dr.  Jallup's  horn  sum- 
moned the  two  men.  Captain  Renfrew  got  out  of  his 
gown  and  into  his  coat  and  turned  off  his  gasolene 
light.  They  walked  around  the  piazza  to  the  front  of 
the  house.  In  the  street  the  head-lights  of  the  roadster 
shot  divergent  rays  through  the  darkness.  They  went 
out.  The  old  Captain  took  a  seat  in  the  car  beside 
the  physician,  while  Peter  stood  on  the  running-board. 
A  moment  later,  the  clutch  snarled,  and  the  machine 
puttered  down  the  street.  Peter  clung  to  the  standards 
of  the  auto  top,  peering  ahead. 

The  men  remained  almost  silent.  Once  Dr.  Jallup, 
watching  the  dust  that  lay  modeled  in  sharp  lights  and 
shadows  under  the  head-lights,  mentioned  lack  of  rain. 
Their  route  did  not  lead  over  the  Big  Hill.  They 
turned  north  at  Hobbett's  corner,  drove  around  by 
River  Street,  and  presently  entered  the  northern  end 
of  the  semicircle. 

The  ^peed  of  the  car  was  reduced  to  a  crawl  in  the 
bottomless  dust  of  the  crescent.  The  head-lights  swept 
slowly  around  the  cabins  on  the  concave  side  of  the 
street,  bringing  them  one  by  one  into  stark  brilliance 
and  dropping  them  into  obscurity.  The  smell  of 
refuse,  of  uncleaned  stables  and  sties  and  outhouses 
hung  in  the  darkness.  Peter  bent  down  under  the 
top  of  the  motor  and  pointed  out  his  place.     A  minute 


114  BIRTHRIGHT 

later  the  machine  came  to  a  noisy  halt  and  was  choked 
into  silence.  At  that  moment,  in  the  sweep  of  the 
head-light,  Peter  saw  Viny  Berry,  one  of  Nan's 
younger  sisters,  coming  up  from  Niggertown's  public 
well,  carrying  two  buckets  of  water. 

Viny  was  hurrying,  plashing  the  water  over  the 
sides  of  her  buckets.  The  importance  of  her  mission 
was  written  in  her  black  face. 

"She  *s  awful  thirsty,"  she  called  to  Peter  in  guarded 
tones.  "Nan  called  me  to  fetch  some  fraish  water 
fum  de  well." 

Peter  took  the  water  that  had  been  brought  from  the 
semi-cesspool  at  the  end  of  the  street.  Viny  hurried 
across  the  street  to  home  and  to  bed.  With  the  habit- 
ual twinge  of  his  sanitary  conscience,  Peter  considered 
the  water  in  the  buckets. 

"We  '11  have  to  boil  this,"  he  said  to  the  doctor. 

"Boil  it  ?"  repeated  Jallup,  blankly.  Then,  he  added : 
"Oh,  yes— boil.     Certainly." 

A  repellent  odor  of  burned  paper,  breathed  air,  and 
smoky  lights  filled  the  close  room.  Nan  had  lighted 
another  lamp  and  now  the  place  was  discernible  in  a 
dull  yellow  glow.  In  the  corner  lay  a  half -burned 
wisp  of  paper.  Nan  herself  stood  by  the  mound  on  the 
bed,  putting  straight  the  quilts  that  her  patient  had 
twisted  awry. 

"She  sho  am  bad,  Doctor,"  said  the  colored  woman, 
with  bi^  eyes, 


BIRTHRIGHT  115 

Seen  in  the  light,  Dr.  Jallup  was  a  little  sandy- 
bearded  man  with  a  round,  simple  face,  oddly  overlaid 
with  that  inscrutability  carefully  cultivated  by  country 
doctors.  With  professional  cheeriness,  he  approached 
the  mound  of  bedclothes. 

"A  little  under  the  weather.  Aunt  Ca'line?"  He 
slipped  his  fingers  alongside  her  throat  to  test  her 
temperature,  at  the  same  time  drawing  a  thermometer 
from  his  waistcoat  pocket. 

The  old  negress  stirred,  and  looked  up  out  of  sick 
eyes. 

'"Doctor,"  she  gasped,  "I  sho  got  a  misery  heah." 
She  indicated  her  stomach. 

"How  do  you  feel?"  he  asked  hopefully. 

The  woman  panted,  then  whispered : 

"Lak  a  knife  was  a-cuttin'  an'  a-tearin*  out  my  in- 
nards." She  rested,  then  added,  "Not  so  bad  now; 
feels  mo'  lak  somp'n  's  tearin'  in  de  nex'  room." 

"Like  something  tearing  in  the  next  room  ?"  repeated 
Jallup,  emptily. 

"Yes,  suh,"  she  whispered.  "I  jes  can  feel  hit — 
away  off,  lak." 

The  doctor  attempted  to  take  her  temperature,  but 
the  thermometer  in  her  mouth  immediately  nauseated 
her;  so  he  slipped  the  instrument  under  her  arm. 

Old  Caroline  groaned  at  the  slightest  exertion,  then, 
as  she  tossed  her  black  head,  she  caught  a  glimpse  of 
old  Captain  Renfrew. 

She  halted  abruptly  in  her  restlessness,  stared  at  the 


ii6  BIRTHRIGHT 

old  gentleman,  wet  her  dry  lips  with  a  queer  brown- 
furred  tongue. 

''Is  dat  you,  Mars'  Milt?"  she  gasped  in  feeble 
astonishment.  A  moment  later  she  guessed  the  truth. 
*'l  s'pose  you  had  to  bring  de  doctor.  'Fo'  Gawd, 
Mars'  Milt — "  She  lay  staring,  with  the  covers  rising 
and  falling  as  she  gasped  for  breath.  Her  feverish 
eyes  shifted  back  and  forth  between  the  grim  old  gen- 
tleman and  the  tall,  broad-shouldered  brown  man  at 
the  foot  of  her  bed.  She  drew  a  baggy  black  arm 
from  under  the  cover. 

"Da"s  Peter,  Mars'  Milt,"  she  pointed.  ''Da"s 
Peter,  my  son.  He — he  use'  to  be  my  son  'fo'  he 
went  off  to  school;  but  sence  he  come  home,  he  been 
a-laughin'  at  me."  Tears  came  to  her  eyes;  she 
panted  for  a  moment,  then  added :  "Yeah,  he  done 
marked  his  mammy  down  fuh  a  nigger.  Mars'  Milt. 
Whut  I  thought  wuz  gwine  be  sweet  lays  bitter  in 
my  mouf."  She  worked  her  thick  lips  as  if  the  rank 
taste  of  her  sickness  were  the  very  flavor  of  her 
son's  ingratitude. 

A  sudden  gasp  and  twist  of  her  body  told  Nan 
that  the  old  woman  was  again  seized  with  a  spasm. 
The  neighbor  woman  took  swift  control,  and  waved 
out  Peter  and  old  Mr.  Renfrew,  while  she  and  the 
doctor  aided  the  huge  negress. 

The  two  evicted  men  went  into  Peter's  room  and 
shut  the  door.  Peter,  unnerved,  groped,  and  presently 
found  and  lighted  a  lamp.     He  put  it  down  on  his 


BIRTHRIGHT  117 

little  table  among  his  primary  papers  and  examination 
papers.  He  indicated  to  Captain  Renfrew  the  single 
chair  in  the  room. 

But  the  old  gentleman  stood  motionless  in  the  mean 
room,  with  its  head-line  streaked  walls.  Sounds  of  the 
heavy  lifting  of  Peter's  mother  came  through  the  thin 
door  and  partition  with  painful  clearness.  Peter 
opened  his  own  small  window,  for  the  air  in  his  room 
was  foul. 

Captain  Renfrew  stood  in  silence,  with  a  remote 
sarcasm  in  his  wrinkled  eyes.  What  was  in  his  heart, 
why  he  had  subjected  himself  to  the  noisomeness  of 
failing  flesh,  Peter  had  not  the  faintest  idea.  Once, 
out  of  studently  habit,  he  glanced  at  Peter's  philo- 
sophic books,  but  apparently  he  read  the  titles  without 
really  observing  them.     Once  he  looked  at  Peter. 

*Teter,"  he  said  colorlessly,  "I  hope  you  '11  be  careful 
of  Caroline's  feelings  if  she  ever  gets  up  again.  She 
has  been  very  faithful  to  you,  Peter." 

Peter's  eyes  dampened.  A  great  desire  mounted 
in  him  to  explain  himself  to  this  strange  old  gentleman, 
to  show  him  how  inevitable  had  been  the  breach. 
For  some  reason  a  veritable  passion  to  reveal  his 
heart  to  this  his  sole  benefactor  surged  through  the 
youth. 

''Mr.  Renfrew,"  he  stammered,  *'Mr.  Renfrew — 
I — I — "  His  throat  abruptly  ached  and  choked.  He 
felt  his  face  distort  in  a  spasm  of  uncontrollable  grief. 
He  turned  quickly  from  this  strange  old  man  with  a 


ii8  BIRTHRIGHT 

remote  sarcasm  in  his  eyes  and  a  remote  affection  in 
his  tones.  Peter  clenched  his  jaws,  his  nostrils  spread 
in  his  effort  stoically  to  bottle  up  his  grief  and  remorse, 
like  a  white  man;  in  an  effort  to  keep  from  howling 
his  agony  aloud,  like  a  negro.  He  stood  with  aching 
throat  and  blurred  eyes,  trembling,  swallowing,  and 
silent. 

Presently  Nan  Berry  opened  the  door.  She  held  a 
half -burned  paper  in  her  hand;  Dr.  Jallup  stood  near 
the  bed,  portioning  out  some  calomel  and  quinine. 
The  prevalent  disease  in  Hooker's  Bend  is  malaria; 
Dr.  Jallup  always  physicked  for  malaria.  On  this 
occasion  he  diagnosed  it  must  be  a  very  severe  attack 
of  malaria  indeed,  so  he  measured  out  enormous  doses. 

He  took  a  glass  of  the  water  that  Viny  had  brought, 
held  up  old  Caroline's  head,  and  washed  down  two  big 
capsules  into  the  already  poisoned  stomach  of  the  old 
negress.  His  simple  face  was  quite  inscrutable  as  he 
did  this.  He  left  other  capsules  for  Nan  to  adminis- 
ter at  regular  intervals.  Then  he  and  Captain  Ren- 
frew motored  out  of  Niggertown,  out  of  its  dust  and 
filth  and  stench. 

At  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  Caroline  Siner  died 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHEN  Nan  Berry  saw  that  Caroline  was  dead, 
the  black  woman  dropped  a  glass  of  water  and 
a  capsule  of  calomel  and  stared.  A  queer  terror  seized 
her.  She  began  such  a  wailing  that  it  aroused  others 
in  Niggertown.  At  the  sound  they  got  out  of  their 
beds  and  came  to  the  Siner  cabin,  their  eyes  big  with 
mystery  and  fear.  At  the  sight  of  old  Caroline's 
motionless  body  they  lifted  their  voices  through  the 
night. 

The  lamentation  carried  far  beyond  the  confines  of 
Niggertown.  The  last  gamblers  in  the  cedar  glade 
heard  it,  and  it  broke  up  their  gaming  and  drinking. 
White  persons  living  near  the  black  crescent  were 
waked  out  of  their  sleep  and  listened  to  the  eerie 
sound.  It  rose  and  fell  in  the  darkness  like  a  melan- 
choly organ  chord.  The  wailing  of  the  women 
quivered  against  the  heavy  grief  of  the  men.  The 
half -asleep  listeners  were  moved  by  its  weirdness  to 
vague  and  sinister  fancies.  The  dolor  veered  away 
from  what  the  Anglo-Saxon  knows  as  grief  and  was 
shot  through  with  the  uncanny  and  the  terrible. 
White  children  crawled  out  of  their  small  beds  and 
groped    their    way    to    their    parents.     The    women 

119 


120  BIRTHRIGHT 

shivered  and  asked  of  the  darkness,  "What  makes 
the  negroes  howl  so?" 

Nobody  knew, — least  of  all,  the  negroes.  Nobody 
suspected  that  the  bedlam  harked  back  to  the  jungle, 
to  black  folk  in  African  kraals  beating  tom-toms  and 
howling,  not  in  grief,  but  in  an  ecstasy  of  terror  lest 
the  souls  of  their  dead  might  come  back  in  the  form 
of  tigers  or  pythons  or  devils  and  work  woe  to  the 
tribe.  Through  the  night  the  negroes  wailed  on,  per- 
forming through  custom  an  ancient  rite  of  which  they 
knew  nothing.  They  supposed  themselves  heartbroken 
over  the  death  of  Caroline  Siner. 

Amid  this  din  Peter  Siner  sat  in  his  room,  stunned 
by  the  sudden  taking  off  of  his  mother.  The  re- 
proaches that  she  had  expressed  to  old  Captain  Ren- 
frew clung  in  Peter's  brain.  The  brown  man  had 
never  before  realized  the  faint  amusement  and  con- 
descension that  had  flavored  all  his  relations  with  his 
mother  since  his  return  home.  But  he  knew  now 
that  she  had  felt  his  disapproval  of  her  lifelong  habits; 
that  she  saw  he  never  explained  or  attempted  to  ex- 
plain his  thoughts  to  her,  assuming  her  to  be  too 
ignorant;  as  she  put  it,  "a  fool." 

The  pathos  of  his  mother's  last  days,  what  she  had 
expected,  what  she  had  received,  came  to  Peter  with 
the  bitterness  of  what  is  finished  and  irrevocable.  She 
had  been  dead  only  a  few  minutes,  yet  she  could  never 
know  his  grief  and  remorse;  she  could  never  forgive 
him.     She  was  utterly  removed  in  a  few  minutes,  in 


BIRTHRIGHT  121 

a  moment,  in  the  failing  of  a  breath.  The  finality  of 
death  overpowered  him. 

Into  his  room,  through  the  thin  wall,  came  the 
catch  of  numberless  sobs,  the  long-drawn  open  wails, 
and  the  spasms  of  sobbing.  Blurred  voices  called, 
'*0  Gawd!  Gawd  hab  mercy!  Hab  mercy!"  Now 
words  were  lost  in  the  midst  of  confusion.  The 
clamor  boomed  through  the  thin  partition  as  if  it 
would  shake  down  his  newspapered  walls.  With  wet 
cheeks  and  an  aching  throat,  Peter  sat  by  his  table, 
staring  at  his  book-case  in  silence,  like  a  white  man. 

The  dim  light  of  his  lamp  fell  over  his  psychologies 
and  philosophies.  These  were  the  books  that  had 
given  him  precedence  over  the  old  washwoman  who 
kept  him  in  college.  It  was  reading  these  books  that 
had  made  him  so  wise  that  the  old  negress  could  not 
even  follow  his  thoughts.  Now  in  the  hour  of  his 
mother's  death  the  backs  of  his  metaphysics  blinked 
at  him  emptily.  What  signified  their  endless  pages 
about  dualism  and  monism,  about  phenomenon  and 
noumenon?  His  mother  was  dead.  And  she  had 
died  embittered  against  him  because  he  had  read  and 
had  been  bewildered  by  these  empty,  wordy  volumes. 

A  sense  of  profound  defeat,  of  being  ultimately 
fooled  and  cozened  by  the  subtleties  of  white  men, 
filled  Peter  Siner.  He  had  eaten  at  their  table,  but 
their  meat  was  not  his  meat.  The  uproar  continued. 
Standing  out  of  the  din  arose  the  burden  of  negro 
voices,  *'Hab  mercy!     Gawd  hab  mercy!" 


122  BIRTHRIGHT 

In  the  morning  the  Ladies  of  Tabor  came  and 
washed  and  dressed  CaroHne  Siner's  body  and  made 
it  ready  for  burial.  For  twenty  years  the  old  negress 
had  paid  ten  cents  a  month  to  her  society  to  insure 
her  burial,  and  now  the  lodge  made  ready  to  fulfil  its 
pledge.  After  many  comings  and  goings,  the  black 
women  called  Peter  to  see  their  work,  as  if  for  his 
approval. 

The  huge  dead  woman  lay  on  the  four-poster  with 
a  sheet  spread  over  the  lower  part  of  her  body.  The 
ministrants  had  clothed  it  in  the  old  black-silk  dress, 
with  its  spreading  seams  and  panels  of  different 
materials.  It  reminded  Peter  of  the  new  dress  he 
had  meant  to  get  his  mother,  and  of  the  modish  suit 
which  at  that  moment  molded  his  own  shoulders  and 
waist.  The  piti fulness  of  her  sacrifices  trembled  in 
Peter's  throat.  He  pressed  his  lips  together,  and 
nodded  silently  to  the  black  Ladies  of  Tabor. 

Presently  the  white  undertaker,  a  silent  little  man 
with  a  brisk  yet  sympathetic  air,  came  and  made  some 
measurements.  He  talked  to  Peter  in  undertones  about 
the  finishing  of  the  casket,  how  much  the  Knights  of 
Tabor  would  pay,  what  Peter  wanted.  Then  he  spoke 
of  the  hour  of  burial,  and  mentioned  a  somewhat  early 
hour  because  some  of  the  negroes  wanted  to  ship  as 
roustabouts  on  the  up-river  packet,  which  was  due  at 
any  moment. 

These  decisions,  asked  of  Peter,  kept  pricking  him 
and  breaking  through  the  stupefaction  of  this  sudden 


BIRTHRIGHT  123 

tragedy.  He  kept  nodding  a  mechanical  agreement 
until  the  undertaker  had  arranged  all  the  details.  Then 
the  little  man  moved  softly  out  of  the  cabin  and  went 
stepping  away  through  the  dust  of  Niggertown  with 
professional  briskness.  A  little  later  two  black  grave- 
diggers  set  out  with  picks  and  shovels  for  the  negro 
graveyard. 

Numberless  preparations  for  the  funeral  were  go- 
ing on  all  over  Niggertown.  The  Knights  of  Tabor 
were  putting  on  their  regalia.  Negro  women  were 
sending  out  hurry  notices  to  white  mistresses  that  they 
would  be  unable  to  cook  the  noonday  meal.  Dozens 
of  negro  girls  flocked  to  the  hair-dressing  establishment 
of  Miss  Mallylou  Speers.  All  were  bent  on  having 
their  wool  straightened  for  the  obsequies,  and  as  only  a 
few  of  them  could  be  accommodated,  the  little  room 
was  packed.  A  smell  of  burning  hair  pervaded  it. 
The  girls  sat  around  waiting  their  turn.  Most 
of  them  already  had  their  hair  down, — or,  rather 
loose,  for  it  stood  out  in  thick  mats.  The  hair-dresser 
had  a  small  oil  stove  on  which  lay  heating  half  a  dozen 
iron  combs.  With  a  hot  comb  she  teased  each  strand 
of  wool  into  perfect  straightness  and  then  plastered 
it  down  with  a  greasy  pomade.  The  result  was  a 
stiff  effect,  something  like  the  hair  of  the  Japanese.  It 
required  about  three  hours  to  straighten  the  hair  of 
one  negress.     The  price  was  a  dollar  and  a  half. 

By  half -past  nine  o'clock  a  crowd  of  negro  men, 
in  lodge  aprons  and  with  spears,  and  negro  women, 


124  EIRTHRIGHT 

with  sashes  of  ribbon  over  their  shoulders  and  across 
the  breasts,  assembled  about  the  Siner  cabin.  In  the 
dusty  curving  street  were  ranged  half  a  dozen  bat- 
tered vehicles, — a  hearse,  a  delivery  wagon,  some 
rickety  buggies,  and  a  hack.  Presently  the  under- 
taker arrived  with  a  dilapidated  black  hearse  which  he 
used  especially  for  negroes.  He  jumped  down,  got 
out  his  straps  and  coffin  stands,  directed  some  negro 
men  to  bring  in  the  coffin,  then  hurried  into  the  cabin 
with  his  air  of  brisk  precision. 

He  placed  the  coffin  on  the  stands  near  the  bed; 
then  a  number  of  men  slipped  the  huge  black  body 
into  it.  The  undertaker  settled  old  Caroline's  head 
against  the  cotton  pillows,  running  his  hand  down  be- 
side her  cheek  and  tipping  her  face  just  so.  Then  he 
put  on  the  cover,  which  left  a  little  oval  opening  just 
above  her  dead  face.  The  sight  of  old  Caroline's  face 
seen  through  the  little  oval  pane  moved  some  of  the 
women  to  renewed  sobs.  Eight  black  men  took  up  the 
coffin  and  carried  it  out  with  the  slow,  wide-legged 
steps  of  roustabouts.  Parson  Ranson,  in  a  rusty 
Prince  Albert  coat,  took  Peter's  arm  and  led  him  to  the 
first  vehicle  after  the  hearse.  It  was  a  delivery  wagon, 
but  it  was  the  best  vehicle  in  the  procession. 

As  Peter  followed  the  coffin  out,  he  saw  the  Knights 
and  Ladies  of  Tabor  lined  up  in  marching  order  be- 
hind the  van.  The  men  held  their  spears  and  swords 
at  attention;  the  women  carried  flowers.  Behind  the 
marchers  came  other  old  vehicles,  a  sorry  procession. 


BIRTHRIGHT  125 

At  fifteen  minutes  to  ten  the  bell  in  the  steeple  of 
the  colored  church  tolled  a  single  stroke.  The  sound 
quivered  through  the  sunshine  over  Niggertown.  At 
its  signal  the  poor  procession  moved  away  through  the 
dust.  At  intervals  the  bell  tolled  after  the  vanishing 
train. 

As  the  negroes  passed  through  the  white  town  the 
merchants,  lolling  in  their  doors,  asked  passers-by  what 
negro  had  died.  The  idlers  under  the  mulberry  in 
front  of  the  livery-stable  nodded  at  the  old  negro 
preacher  in  his  long  greenish-black  coat,  and  Dawson 
Bobbs  remarked: 

*'Well,  old  Parson  Ranson  's  going  to  tell  'em  about 
it  to-day,"  and  he  shifted  his  toothpick  with  a  certain 
effect  of  humor. 

Old  Mr.  Tom  wit  asked  if  his  companions  had  ever 
heard  how  Newt  Bodler,  a  wit  famous  in  Wayne 
County,  once  broke  up  a  negro  funeral  with  a  hornets' 
nest.  The  idlers  nodded  a  smiling  affirmative  as  they 
watched  the  cortege  go  past.  They  had  all  heard  it. 
But  Mr.  Tomwit  would  not  be  denied.  He  sallied 
forth  into  humorous  reminiscence.  Another  loafer 
contributed  an  anecdote  of  how  he  had  tied  ropes  to 
a  dead  negro  so  as  to  make  the  corpse  sit  up  in  bed 
and   frighten  the  mourners. 

All  their  tales  were  of  the  vintage  of  the  years  im- 
mediately succeeding  the  Civil  War, — pioneer  humor, 
such  as  convulsed  the  readers  of  Peck's  Bad  Boy, 
Mr.  Bowser,  Sut  Lovingood.     The  favorite  dramatic 


126  BIRTHRIGHT 

properties  of  such  writers  were  the  hornets*  nest,  the 
falling  ladder,  the  banana  peel.  They  cultivated  the 
humor  of  contusions,  the  wit  of  impact.  This  style 
still  holds  the  stage  of  Hooker's  Bend. 

In  telling  these  tales  the  white  villagers  meant  no 
special  disrespect  to  the  negro  funeral.  It  simply  re- 
minded them  of  humorous  things;  so  they  told  their 
jokes,  like  the  naive  children  of  the  soil  that  they  were. 

At  last  the  poor  procession  passed  beyond  the  white 
church,  around  a  bend  in  the  road,  and  so  vanished. 
Presently  the  bell  in  Niggertown  ceased  tolling. 

Peter  always  remembered  his  mother's  funeral  in 
fragments  of  intolerable  pathos, — the  lifting  of  old 
Parson  Ranson's  hands  toward  heaven,  the  songs  of 
the  black  folk,  the  murmur  of  the  first  shovelful  of 
dirt  as  it  was  lowered  to  the  coffin,  and  the  final  raw 
mound  of  earth  littered  with  a  few  dying  flowers. 
With  that  his  mother — ^who  had  been  so  near  to,  and 
so  disappointed  in,  her  son — was  blotted  from  his  life. 
The  other  events  of  the  funeral  flowed  by  in  a  sort 
of  dream :  he  moved  about ;  the  negroes  were  speaking 
to  him  in  the  queer  overtones  one  uses  to  the  bereaved ; 
hie  was  being  driven  back  to  Niggertown ;  he  reentered 
the  Siner  cabin.  One  or  two  of  his  friends  stayed 
in  the  room  with  him  for  a  while  and  said  vague  things, 
but  there  was  nothing  to  say. 

Later  in  the  afternoon  Cissie  Dildine  and  her  mother 
brought  his  dinner  to  him.     Vannie  Dildine,  a  thin 


BIRTHRIGHT  127 

yellow  woman,  uttered  a  few  disjointed  words  about 
Sister  Ca'line  being  a  good  woman,  and  stopped  amid 
sentence.  There  was  nothing  to  say.  Death  had  cut 
a  wound  across  Peter  Siner's  life.  Not  for  days,  nor 
weeks,  nor  months,  would  his  existence  knit  solidly 
back  together.  The  poison  of  his  ingratitude  to  his 
faithful  old  black  mother  would  for  a  long,  long  day 
prevent  the  healing. 


CHAPTER  VII 

DURIN'G  a  period  following  his  mother's  death 
Peter  Siner's  life  drifted  emptily  and  without 
purpose.  He  had  the  feeling  of  one  convalescing  in 
a  hospital.  His  days  passed  unconnected  by  any 
thread  of  purpose;  they  were  like  cards  scattered  on  a 
table,  meaning  nothing. 

At  times  he  struggled  against  his  lethargy.  When 
he  awoke  in  the  morning  and  found  the  sun  shining 
on  his  dusty  primers  and  examination  papers,  he  would 
think  that  he  ought  to  go  back  to  his  old  task ;  but  he 
never  did.  In  his  heart  grew  a  conviction  that  he 
would  never  teach  school  at  Hooker's  Bend. 

He  would  rise  and  dress  slowly  in  the  still  cabin, 
thinking  he  must  soon  make  new  plans  and  take  up 
some  work.  He  never  decided  precisely  what  work; 
his  thoughts  trailed  on  in  vague,  idle  designs. 

In  fact,  during  Peter's  reaction  to  his  shock  there 
began  to  assert  itself  in  him  that  capacity  for  pro- 
found indolence  inherent  in  his  negro  blood.  To  a 
white  man  time  is  a  cumulative  excitant.  Continuous 
and  absolute  idleness  is  impossible;  he  must  work, 
hunt,  fish,  play,  gamble,  or  dissipate, — do  something  to 
burn  up  the  accumulating  sugar  in  his  muscles.     But 

128 


BIRTHRIGHT  129 

to  a  negro  idleness  is  an  increasing  balm;  it  is  a 
stretching  of  his  legs  in  the  sunshine,  a  cat-like  purring 
of  his  nerves;  while  his  thoughts  spread  here  and  there 
in  inconsequences,  like  water  without  a  channel,  mak- 
ing little  humorous  eddies,  winding  this  way  and  that 
into  oddities  and  fantasies  without  ever  feeling  that 
constraint  of  sequence  which  continually  operates  in  a 
white  brain.  And  it  is  this  quality  that  makes  negroes 
the  entertainers  of  children  par  excellence. 

Peter  Siner's  mental  slackening  made  him  under- 
standable, and  gave  him  a  certain  popularity  in  Nigger- 
town.  Black  men  fell  into  the  habit  of  dropping  in 
at  the  Siner  cabin,  where  they  would  sit  outdoors,  with 
chairs  propped  against  the  wall,  and  philosophize  on 
the  desultory  life  of  the  crescent.  Sometimes  they 
would  relate  their  adventures  on  the  river  packets  and 
around  the  docks  at  Paducah,  Cairo,  St.  Joe,  and  St. 
Louis;  usually  a  recountal  of  drunkenness,  gaming, 
fighting,  venery,  arrests,  jail  sentences,  petty  pecula- 
tions, and  escapes.  Through  these  Iliads  of  vagabond- 
age ran  an  irresponsible  gaiety,  a  non-morality,  and  a 
kind  of  unbrave  zest  for  adventure.  They  told  of  their 
defeats  and  flights  with  as  much  relish  and  humor  as 
of  their  charges  and  victories.  And  while  the  spirit 
was  thoroughly  pagan,  these  accounts  were  full  of  the 
cliches  of  religion.  A  roustabout  whom  every  one 
called  the  Persimmon  confided  to  Peter  that  he  meant 
to  cut  loose  some  logs  in  a  raft  up  the  river,  float  them 


I30  BIRTHRIGHT 

down  a  little  way,  tie  them  up  again,  and  claim  the 
prize-money  for  salvaging  them,  God  willing. 

The  Persimmon  was  so  called  from  a  scar  on  his 
long  slanting  head.  A  steamboat  mate  had  once  found 
him  asleep  in  the  passageway  of  a  lumber  pile  which 
the  boat  was  lading,  and  he  waked  the  negro  by  hit- 
ting him  in  the  head  with  a  persimmon  bolt.  In  this 
there  was  nothing  unusual  or  worthy  of  a  nickname. 
The  point  was,  the  mate  had  been  mistaken:  the  Per- 
simmon was  not  working  on  his  boat  at  all.  In  time 
this  became  one  of  the  stock  anecdotes  which  pilots 
and  captains  told  to  passengers  traveling  up  and  down 
the  river. 

The  Persimmon  was  a  queer-looking  negro;  his 
head  was  a  long  diagonal  from  its  peak  down  to  his 
pendent  lower  lip,  for  he  had  no  chin.  The  salient 
points  on  this  black  slope  were  the  Persimmon's  sad, 
protruding  yellow  eyeballs,  over  which  the  lids  al- 
ways drooped  about  half  closed.  An  habitual  tip- 
ping of  this  melancholy  head  to  one  side  gave  the 
Persimmon  the  look  of  one  pondering  and  deploring 
the  amount  of  sin  there  was  in  the  world.  This  saintly 
impression  the  Persimmon's  conduct  and  language 
never  bore  out. 

At  the  time  of  the  Persimmon's  remarks  about  the 
raft  two  of  Peter's  callers,  Jim  Pink  Staggs  and 
Parson  Ranson,  took  the  roustabout  to  task.  Jim 
Pink  based  his  objection  on  the  grounds  of  glutting 
the  labor  market. 


BIRTHRIGHT  131 

"Ef  us  niggers  keeps  tumin'  too  many  raf  s  loose 
fuh  de  prize-money,"  he  warned,  "somebody  's  goin' 
to  git  'spicious,  an'  you  '11  ruin  a  good  thing." 

The  Persimmon  absorbed  this  with  a  far-away  look 
in  his  half-closed  eyes. 

"It 's  a  ticklish  job,"  argued  Parson  Ranson,  "an* 
I  would  n't  want  to  wuck  at  de  debbil's  task  aroun' 
de  ribber,  ca'se  you  mout  fall  in.  Persimmon,  an'  git 
drownded." 

"I  would  n't  do  sich  a  thing  a-tall,"  admitted  the 
Persimmon,  "but  I  jes'  natchelly  got  to  git  ten  dol- 
lars to  he'p  pay  on  my  divo'ce." 

"I  kain't  see  whut  you  want  wid  a  divo'ce,"  said 
Jim  Pink,  yawning,  "when  you  been  ma'ied  three 
times  widout  any." 

"It's  fuh  a  Christmas  present,"  explained  the  Per- 
simmon, carelessly,  "fuh  th'  woman  I'm  libin'  wid 
now.  Mahaly  's  a  great  woman  fuh  style.  I  'm 
goin'  to  divo'ce  my  other  wives,  one  at  a  time  lak  my 
lawyer  say." 

"On   what  grounds?'*   asked   Peter,   curiously. 

"Desuhtion." 

"Desertion?" 

"Uhhuh;  Idesuhted  'em." 

Jim  Pink  shook  his  head,  picked  up  a  pebble,  and 
began  idly  juggling  it,  making  it  appear  double,  single, 
treble,  then  single  again. 

"Too  many  divo'ces  in  dis  country  now,  Persim- 
mon," he  moralized. 


132  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Well,  whut  's  de  cause  uv  ^em  ?"  asked  the  Per- 
simmon, suddenly  bringing  his  protruding  yellow  eyes 
around  on  the  sleight-of-hand  performer. 

Jim  Pink  was  slightly  taken  aback;  then  he  said: 

"  'Spicion ;  nothin'  but  'spicion." 

"Yeah,  'spicion,"  growled  the  Persimmon;  "  'spicion 
an'  de  husban'  leadin'  a  irreg'lar  life." 

Jim   Pink  looked  at  his  companion,   curiously. 

"The  husban' — leadin'  a  irreg'lar  life?" 

"Yeah," — the  Persimmon  nodded  grimly, — "the 
husban'  comin'  home  at  onexpected  hours.  You  know 
whut  I  means,  Jim  Pink." 

Jim  Pink  let  his  pebble  fall  and  lowered  the  fore 
legs  of  his  chair  softly  to  the  ground. 

"Now,  look  heah,  Persimmon,  you  don'  want  to 
be  draggin'  no  foreign  disco'se  into  yo'  talk  heah 
,bek>'   Mr.    Siner  an'    Parson   Ranson." 

The  Persimmon  rose  deliberately. 
/       "All  I  want  to  say  is,  I  drapped  off'n  de  matri- 
monial tree  three  times  a' ready,  Jim  Pink,  an'  I  think 
I  feels  somebody  shakin'  de  limb  ag'in." 

The  old  negro  preacher  rose,  too,  a  little  behind 
Jim  Pink. 

"Now,  boys!  boys!"  he  placated.  "You  jes  think 
dat.  Persimmon." 

"Yeah,"  admitted  Persimmon,  "I  jes  think  it;  but 
ef  I  b'lieve  ever' thing  is  so  whut  I  think  is  so,  I  'd  part 
Jim  Pink's  wool  wid  a  brickbat." 


BIRTHRIGHT  133 

Parson  Ranson  tried  to  make  peace,  but  the  Per-   « 
simmon  spread  his  hands  in  a  gesture  that  included 
the   three   men.     "Now,    I   ain't   sayin'    nothin',''   he    j 
stated  solemnly,  "an'  I  ain't  makin'  no  threats;  but    j 
ef  anything  happens,  you-all  kain't  say  that  nobody 
did  n'  tell  nobody  about  nothin'."  \ 

With  this  the  Persimmon  walked  to  the  gate,  let       '' 
himself  out,  still  looking  back  at  Jim  Pink,  and  then 
started  down  the  dusty  street. 

Mr.  Staggs  seemed  uncomfortable  under  the  Per- 
simmon's protruding  yellow  stare,  but  finally,  when  the 
roustabout  was  gone,  he  shrugged,  regained  his  aplomb, 
and  remarked  that  some  niggers  spent  their  time  in 
studyin'  'bout  things  they  had  n't  no  info'mation  on 
whatever.  Then  he  strolled  off  up  the  crescent  in 
the  other  direction. 

All  this  would  have  made  fair  minstrel  patter  if 
Peter  Siner  had  shared  the  white  conviction  that  every 
emotion  expressed  in  a  negro's  patois  is  humorous. 
Unfortunately,  Peter  was  too  close  to  the  negroes  to  j 
hold  such  a  tenet.  He  knew  this  quarrel  was  none 
the  less  rancorous  for  having  been  couched  in  the  queer 
circumlocution  of  black  folk.  And  behind  it  all  shone 
the  background  of  racial  promiscuity  out  of  which 
it  sprang.  It  was  like  looking  at  an  open  sore  that 
touched  all  of  Niggertown,  men  and  boys,  young  girls 
and  women.  It  caused  tragedies,  murders,  fights,  and 
desertions  in  the  black  village  as  regularly  as  the  rota- 


134  BIRTHRIGHT 

tion  of  the  calendar;  yet  -there  was  no  public  senti- 
ment against  it.  Peter  wondered  how  this  attitude 
of  his  whole  people  could  possibly  be. 

With  the  query  the  memory  of  Ida  May  came  back 
to  him,  with  its  sense  of  dim  pathos.  It  seemed  to 
Peter  now  as  if  their  young  and  uninstructed  hands 
had  destroyed  a  safety-vault  to  filch  a  penny. 

The  reflex  of  a  thought  of  Ida  May  always  brought 
Peter  to  Cissie;  it  always  stirred  up  in  him  a  desire 
to  make  this  young  girl's  path  gentle  and  smooth. 
There  was  a  fineness,  a  delicacy  about  Cissie,  that,  it 
seemed  to  Peter,  Ida  May  had  never  possessed.  Then, 
too,  Cissie  was  moved  by  a  passion  for  self -betterment. 
She  deserved  a  cleaner  field  than  the  Niggertown  of 
Hooker's  Bend. 

Peter  took  Parson  Ranson's  arm,  and  the  two  moved 
to  the  gate  by  common  consent.  It  was  no  longer 
pleasant  to  sit  here.  The  quarrel  they  had  heard  some- 
how had  flavored  their  surroundings. 

Peter  turned  his  steps  mechanically  northward  up  the 
crescent  toward  the  Dildine  cabin.  Nothing  now  re- 
strained him  from  calling  on  Cissie;  he  would  keep 
no  dinner  waiting ;  he  would  not  be  warned  and  berated 
on  his  return  home.  The  nagging,  jealous  love  of  his 
mother  had  ended. 

As  the  two  men  walked  along,  it  was  borne  in  upon 
Peter  that  his  mother's  death  definitely  ended  one 
period  of  his  life.  There  was  no  reason  why  he  should 
continue  his  present  unsettled  existence.     It  seemed 


BIRTHRIGHT  135 

best  to  marry  Cissie  at  once  and  go  North.  Further 
time  in  this  place  would  not  be  good  for  the  girl.  Even 
if  he  could  not  lift  all  Niggertown,  he  could  at  least 
help  Cissie.  He  had  had  no  idea,  when  he  first 
planned  his  work,  what  a  tremendous  task  he  was 
essaying.  The  white  village  had  looked  upon  the 
negroes  so  long  as  non-moral  and  non-human  that  the 
negroes,  with  the  flexibility  of  their  race,  had  assimi- 
lated that  point  of  view.  The  whites  tried  to  regulate 
the  negroes  by  endless  laws.  The  negroes  had  come  to 
accept  this,  and  it  seemed  that  they  verily  believed  that 
anything  not  discovered  by  the  constable  was  permis- 
sible. Mr.  Dawson  Bobbs  was  Niggertown's  con- 
science. It  was  best  for  Peter  to  take  from  this  at- 
mosphere what  was  dearest  to  him,  and  go  at  once. 

The  brown  man's  thoughts  came  trailing  back  to  the 
old  negro  parson  hobbling  at  his  side.  He  looked 
at  the  old  man,  hesitated  a  moment,  then  told  him 
what  was  in  his  mind. 

Parson    Ranson's    face   wrinkled    into    a   grin. 

*' You  's  gwine  to  git  ma'ied  ?" 

"And  I  thought  I  'd  have  you  perform  the  cere- 
mony." 

This  suggestion  threw  the  old  negro  into  excitement. 

"Me,  Mr.  Peter?" 

"Yes.     Why  not?" 

"Why,  Mr.  Peter,  I  kain't  jine  you  an'  Miss  Cissie 
Dildine." 

Peter  looked  at  him,  astonished. 


136  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Why  can't  you?" 

"Why  n't  you  git  a  white  preacher?" 

"Well,"  deliberated  Peter,  gravely,  "it 's  a  matter 
of  principle  with  me,  Parson  Ranson.  I  think  we 
colored  people  ought  to  be  more  self-reliant,  more 
self-serving.  We  ought  to  lead  our  own  lives  instead 
of  being  mere  echoes  of  white  thought."  He  made 
a  swift  gesture,  moved  by  this  passion  of  his  life. 
"I  don't  mean  racial  equality.  To  my  mind  racial 
equality  is  an  empty  term.  One  might  as  well  ask 
whether  pink  and  violet  are  equal.  But  what  I  do 
insist  on   is  autonomous  development." 

The  old  preacher  nodded,  staring  into  the  dust. 
"Sho!  'tonomous  'velopment." 

Peter  saw  that  his  language,  if  not  his  thought,  was 
far  beyond  his  old  companion's  grasp,  and  he  lacked 
the  patience  to  simplify  himself. 

"Why  don't  you  want  to  marry  us.  Parson?" 

Parson  Ranson  lifted  his  brows  and  filled  his  fore- 
head with  wrinkles. 

"Well,  I  dunno.  You  an'  Miss  Cissie  acts  too  much 
lak  white  folks  fuh  a  nigger  lak  me  to  jine  you,  Mr. 
Peter." 

Peter  made  a  sincere  effort  to  be  irritated,  but  he 
was  not. 

"That 's  no  way  to  feel.  It 's  exactly  what  I  v/as 
talking  about, — racial  self-rehance.  You  've  married 
hundreds  of  colored  couples." 

"Ya-as,  suh," — the  old  fellow  scratched  his  black 


BIRTHRIGHT  137 

jaw, — "I  kin  yoke  up  a  pair  uv  ordina'y  niggers  all 
right.  Sometimes  dey  sticks,  sometimes  dey  don't." 
The  old  man  shook  his  white,  kinky  head.  "I  '11  bust 
in  an'  try  to  hitch  up  you-all.  I — I  dunno  whedder 
de  cer'mony  will  hoi'  away  up  North  or  not." 

"It  '11  be  all  right  anywhere.  Parson,"  said  Peter, 
seriously.  ''Your  name  on  the  marriage-certificate 
will — can  you  write?" 

''N-no,  suh." 

After  a  brief  hesitation  Peter  repeated  deter- 
minedly : 

"It  '11  be  all  right.  And,  by  the  way,  of  course, 
this  will  be  a  very  quiet  wedding." 

"Yas-suh."     The  old  man  bobbed  importantly. 

"I  would  n't  mention  it  to  any  one." 

"No,  suh;  no,  suh.  I  don'  blame  you  a-tall,  Mr. 
Peter,  wid  dat  Tump  Pack  gallivantin'  roun'  wid  a 
forty-fo\  Hit  would  keep  'mos'  anybody's  weddin' 
ve'y  quiet  onless  he  wuz  lookin*  fuh  a  short  cut  to 
heab'n." 

As  the  two  negroes  passed  the  Berry  cabin.  Nan 
Berry  thrust  out  her  spiked  head  and  called  to  Peter 
that  Captain  Renfrew  wanted  to  see  him. 

Peter  paused,  with  quickened  interest  in  this  strange 
old  man  who  had  come  to  his  mother's  death-bed  with 
a  doctor.     Peter  asked  Nan  what  the  Captain  wanted. 

Nan  did  not  know.  Wince  Washington  had  told 
Nan  that  the  Captain  wanted  to  see  Peter.  Bluegum 
Frakes  had  told  Wince;  Jerry  Dillihay  had  told  Blue- 


138  BIRTHRIGHT 

gum;  but  any  further  meanderings  of  the  message, 
when  it  started,  or  what  its  details  might  be,  Nan 
could  not  state. 

It  was  a  typical  message  from  a  resident  of  the 
white  town  to  a  denizen  of  Niggertown.  Such  mes- 
sages are  delivered  to  any  black  man  for  any  other 
black  man,  not  only  in  the  village,  but  anywhere  in 
the  outlying  country.  It  may  be  passed  on  by  a  dozen 
or  a  score  of  mouths  before  it  reaches  its  objective. 
It  may  be  a  day  or  a  week  in  transit,  but  eventually  it 
will  be  delivered  verbatim.  This  queer  system  of  com- 
munication is  a  relic  of  slavery,  when  the  master  would 
send  out  word  for  some  special  negro  out  of  two  or 
three  hundred  slaves  to  report  at  the  big  house. 

However,  as  Peter  approached  the  Dildine  cabin, 
thoughts  of  his  approaching  marriage  drove  from  his 
mind  even  old  Captain  Renfrew's  message.  His  heart 
beat  fast  from  having  made  his  first  formal  step  toward 
wedlock.  The  thought  of  having  Cissie  all  tO'  him- 
self, swept  his  nerves  in  a  gust. 

He  opened  the  gate,  and  ran  up  between  the  dusty 
lines  of  dwarf  box,  eager  to  tell  her  what  he  had  done. 
He  thumped  on  the  cracked,  unpainted  door,  and  im- 
patiently waited  the  skirmish  of  observation  along  the 
edge  of  the  window-blinds.  This  was  unduly  drawn 
out.  Presently  he  heard  women's  voices  whispering 
to  each  other  inside.  They  seemed  urgent,  almost 
angry  voices.     Now  and  then  he  caught  a  sentence: 


BIRTHRIGHT  139 

"What  difference  will  it  make  ?"  "I  could  n't."  "Why 
couldn't  you?"  ''Because — "  'That's  because  you've 
been  to  Nashville."  "Oh,  well — "  A  chair  was  moved 
over  a  bare  floor.  A  little  later  footsteps  came  to  the 
entrance,  the  door  opened,  and  Cissie's  withered  yel- 
low mother  stood  before  him. 

Vannie  offered  her  hand  and  inquired  after  Peter's 
health,  with  a  stopped  voice  that  instantly  recalled  his 
mother's  death.  After  the  necessary  moment  of  talk, 
the  mulatto  inquired  for  Cissie. 

The  yellow  woman  seemed  slightly  ill  at  ease. 

"Cissie  ain't  so  well,  Peter." 

"She 'snot  ill?" 

"N-no;  but  the  excitement  an'  ever' thing — "  an- 
swered Vannie,  vaguely. 

In  the  flush  of  his  plans,  Peter  was  keenly  disap- 
pointed. 

"It 's  very  important,  Mrs.  Dildine." 

Vannie's  dried  yellow  face  framed  the  ghost  of  a 
smile. 

"^er'thing  a  young  man  's  got  to  say  to  a  gal  is 
ve'y  important,  Peter." 

It  seemed  to  Peter  a  poor  time  for  a  jest;  his  face 
warmed  faintly. 

"It — it 's  about  some  of  the  details  of  our — our 
wedding." 

"If  you  '11  excuse  her  to-day,  Peter,  an'  come  after 
supper — " 


I40  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter  hesitated,  and  was  about  to  go  away  when 
Cissie's  voice  came  from  an  inner  room,  telling  her 
mother  to  admit  him. 

The  yellow  woman  glanced  at  the  door  on  the  left 
side  of  the  hall,  crossed  over  and  opened  it,  stood  to 
one  side  while  Peter  entered,  and  closed  it  after  him, 
leaving  the  two  alone. 

The  room  into  which  Peter  stepped  was  dark,  after 
the  fashion  of  negro  houses.  Only  after  a  moment's 
survey  did  he  see  Cissie  sitting  near  a  big  fireplace  made 
of  rough  stone.  The  girl  started  to  rise  as  Peter  ad- 
vanced toward  her,  but  he  solicitously  forbade  it  and 
hurried  over  to  her.  When  he  leaned  over  her  and 
put  his  arms  about  her,  his  ardor  was  slightly  dampened 
when  she  gave  him  her  cheek  instead  of  her  lips  to  kiss. 

"Surely,  you  're  not  too  ill  to  be  kissed?"  he  rallied 
faintly. 

"You  kissed  me.  I  thought  we  had  agreed,  Peter, 
you  were  not  to  come  in  the  daytime  any  more." 

"Oh,  is  that  it?"  Peter  patted  her  shoulder,  cheer- 
fully. "Don't  worry;  I  have  just  removed  any  reason 
why  I  should  n't  come  any  time  I  want  to." 

Cissie  looked  at  him,  her  dark  eyes  large  in  the 
gloom. 

"What  have  you  done?" 

"Got  a  preacher  to  marry  us ;  on  my  way  now  for  a 
license.  Dropped  in  to  ask  if  you  '11  be  ready  by  to- 
morrow or  next  day." 

The  girl  gasped. 


BIRTHRIGHT  141 

^'But,  Peter—" 

Peter  drew  a  chair  beside  her  in  a  serious  argumenta- 
tive mood. 

"Yes,  I  think  we  ought  to  get  married  at  once.  No 
reason  why  we  shouldn't  get  it  over  with —  Why, 
what's  the  matter?" 

"So  soon  after  your  mother's  death,  Peter?" 

*Tt  's  to  get  away  from  Hooker's  Bend,  Cissie — to 
get  you  away.  I  don't  like  for  you  to  stay  here.  It 's 
all  so — "  he  broke  off,  not  caring  to  open  the  disagree- 
able subject. 

The  girl  sat  staring  down  at  some  fagots  smoldering 
on  the  hearth.  At  that  moment  they  broke  into  flame 
and  illuminated  her  sad  face. 

"You'll  go,  won't  you?"  asked  Peter  at  last,  with 
a  faint  uncertainty. 

The  girl  looked  up. 

"Oh— I— I  'd  be  glad  to,  Peter,"— she  gave  a  little 
shiver.  "Ugh!  this  Niggertown  is  a — a  terrible 
place!" 

Peter  leaned  over,  took  one  of  her  hands,  and  patted 
it. 

"Then  we  '11  go,"  he  said  soothingly.  "It 's  decided 
— to-morrow.  And  we  '11  have  a  perfectly  lovely  wed- 
ding trip,"  he  planned  cheerfully,  to  draw  her  mind 
from  her  mood.  "On  the  car  going  North  I  '11  get  a 
whole  drawing-room.  I  've  always  wanted  a  drawing- 
room,  and  you  '11  be  my  excuse.  We  '11  sit  and  watch 
the  fields  and  woods  and  cities  slip  past  us,  and  know, 


1142  BIRTHRIGHT 

when  we  get  off,  we  can  walk  on  the  streets  as  freely 
as  anybody.     We  '11  be  a  genuine  man  and  wife." 

His  recital  somehow  stirred  him.  He  took  her  in 
his  arms,  pressed  her  cheek  to  his,  and  after  a  moment 
kissed  her  lips  with  the  trembling  ardor  of  a  bride- 
groom. 

Cissie  remained  passive  a  moment,  then  put  up  her 
hands,  turned  his  face  away,  and  slowly  released  her- 
self. 

Peter  was  taken  aback. 

"What  is  the  matter,  Cissie?" 

"I  can't  go,  Peter." 

Peter  looked  at  her  with  a  feeling  of  strangeness. 

"Can't  go?" 

The  girl  shook  her  head. 

"You  mean — you  want  us  to  live  here?" 

Cissie  sat  exceedingly  still  and  barely  shook  her  head. 

The  mulatto  had  a  sensation  as  if  the  portals  which 
disclosed  a  new  and  delicious  life  were  slowly  closing 
against  him.     He  stared  into  her  oval  face. 

"You  don't  mean,  Cissie — ^you  don't  mean  you  don't 
want  to  marry  me?" 

The  fagots  on  the  hearth  burned  now  with  a  cheerful 
flame.  Cissie  stared  at  it,  breathing  rapidly  from  the 
top  of  her  lungs.  She  seemed  about  to  faint.  As 
Peter  watched  her  the  jealousy  of  the  male  crept  over 
him. 

"Look  here,  Cissie,"  he  said  in  a  queer  voice,  "you — 
you  don't  mean,  after  all,  that  Tump  Pack  is — " 


BIRTHRIGHT  143 

"Oh,  no!  No!"  Her  face  showed  her  repulsion. 
Then  she  drew  a  long  breath  and  apparently  made  up 
her  mind  to  some  sort  of  ordeal. 

'Teter,"  she  asked  in  a  low  tone,  "did  you  ever  think 
what  we  colored  people  are  trying  to  reach?"  She 
stared  into  his  uncomprehending  eyes.  "I  mean  what 
is  our  aim,  our  goal,  whom  are  we  trying  to  be  like?" 

"We  are  n't  trying  to  be  like  any  one."  Peter  was 
entirely  at  a  loss. 

"Oh,  yes,  we  are,"  Cissie  hurried  on.  "Why  do 
colored  girls  straighten  their  hair,  bleach  their  skins, 
pinch  their  feet?  Aren't  they  trying  to  look  like 
white  girls?" 

Peter  agreed,  wondering  at  her  excitement. 

"And  you  went  North  to  college,  Peter,  so  you  could 
think  and  act  like  a  white  man — " 

Peter  resisted  this  at  once;  he  was  copying  nobody. 
The  whole  object  of  college  was  to  develop  one's  per- 
sonality, to  bring  out — 

The  girl  stopped  his  objections  almost  piteously. 

"Oh,  don't  argue!  You  know  arguing  throws  me 
off.  I — now  I  've  forgotten  how  I  meant  to  say  it !" 
Tears  of  frustration  welled  up  in  her  eyes. 

Her  mood  was  alarming,  almost  hysterical.  Peter 
began  comforting  her. 

"There,  there,  dear,  dear  Cissie,  what  is  the  matter  ? 
Don't  say  it  at  all."  Then,  inconsistently,  he  added: 
"You  said  I  copied  white  men.     Well,  what  of  it?" 

Cissie  breathed  her  relief  at  having  been  given  the 


144  BIRTHRIGHT 

thread  of  her  discourse.  She  sat  silent  for  a  moment, 
with  the  air  of  one  screwing  up  her  courage. 

'Tt  's  this,"  she  said  in  an  uncertain  voice :  "some- 
times we — we — girls — here  in  Niggertown  copy  the 
wrong  thing  first." 

Peter  looked  blankly  at  her. 

"The  wrong  thing  first,  Cissie  ?" 

"Oh,  yes;  we — we  begin  on  clothes  and — and  hair, 
aftd — and  that  is  n't  the  real  matter." 

"Why,  no-o-o,  that  is  n't  the  real  matter,"  said  Peter, 
puzzled. 

Cissie  looked  at  his  face  and  became  hopeless. 

"Oh,  do'n't  you  understand!  Lots  of  us — lots  of 
us  make  that  mistake !  I — I  did ;  so — so,  Peter,  I  can't 
go  with  you !"  She  flung  out  the  last  phrase,  and  sud- 
denly collapsed  on  the  arm  of  her  chair,  sobbing. 

Peter  was  amazed.  He  got  up,  sat  on  the  arm  of 
his  own  chair  next  to  hers  and  put  his  arms  about  her, 
bending  over  her,  mothering  her.  Her  distress  was  so 
great  that  he  said  as  earnestly  as  his  ignorance  per- 
mitted : 

"Yes,  Cissie,  I  understand  now."  But  his  tone 
belied  his  words,  and  the  girl  shook  her  head.  "Yes, 
I  do,  Cissie,"  he  repeated  emptily.  But  she  only  shook 
her  head  as  she  leaned  over  him,  and  her  tears  slowly 
formed  and  trickled  down  on  his  hand.  Then  all  at 
once  old  Caroline's  accusation  against  Cissie  flashed 
on  Peter's  mind.  She  had  stolen  that  dinner  in  the 
turkey  roaster,  after  all.     It  so  startled  him  that  he  sat 


BIRTHRIGHT  145 

up  straight.  Cissie  also  sat  up.  She  stopped  crying, 
and  sat  looking  into  the  fire. 

"You  mean — morals?"  said  Peter  in  a  low  tone. 

Cissie  barely  nodded,  her  wet  eyes  fixed  on  the  fire. 

"I  see.     I  was  stupid." 

The  girl  sat  a  moment,  drawing  deep  breaths.  At 
last  she  rose  slowly. 

"Well — I  'm  glad  it 's  over.  I  'm  glad  you  know." 
She  stood  looking  at  him  almost  composedly  except  for 
her  breathing  and  her  tear-stained  face.  "You  see, 
Peter,  if  you  had  been  like  Tump  Pack  or  Wince  or  any 
of  the  boys  around  here,  it — it  would  n't  have  made 
much  difference;  but — but  you  went  off  and — and 
learned  to  think  and  feel  like  a  white  man.  You — you 
changed  your  code,  Peter."  She  gave  a  little  shaken 
sound,  something  between  a  sob  and  a  laugh.  "I — I 
don't  think  th-that  's  very  fair,  Peter,  to — to  go  away 
an' — an'  change  an'  come  back  an'  judge  us  with  yo' 
n-new  code."     Cissie's  precise  English  broke  down. 

Just  then  Peter's  logic  caught  at  a  point. 

"If  you  did  n't  know  anything  about  my  code,  how 
do  you  know  what  I  feel  now?"  he  asked. 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  queer  expression. 

"I  found  out  when  you  kissed  me  under  the  arbor. 
It  was  too  late  then." 

She  stood  erect,  with  dismissal  very  clearly  written 
in  her  attitude.     Peter  walked  out  of  the  room. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WITH  a  certain  feeling  of  clumsiness  Peter 
groped  in  the  dark  hall  for  his  hat,  then,  as 
quietly  as  he  could,  let  himself  out  at  the  door.  Out- 
side he  was  surprised  to  find  that  daylight  still  lingered 
in  the  sky.  He  thought  night  had  fallen.  The  sun  lay 
behind  the  Big  Hill,  but  its  red  rays  pouring  down 
through  the  boles  of  the  cedars  tinted  long  delicate 
avenues  in  the  dusty  atmosphere  above  his  head.  A 
sharp  chill  in  the  air  presaged  frost  for  the  night. 
Somewhere  in  the  crescent  a  boy  yodeled  for  his  dog 
at  about  half -minute  intervals,  with  the  persistence  of 
children. 

Peter  walked  a  little  distance,  but  finally  came  to  a 
stand  in  the  dust,  looking  at  the  negro  cabins,  not 
knowing  where  to  go  or  what  to  do.  Cissie's  con- 
fession had  destroyed  all  his  plans.  It  had  left  him 
as  adynamic  as  had  his  mother's  death.  It  seemed  to 
Peter  that  there  was  a  certain  similarity  between  the 
two  events;  both  were  sudden  and  desolating.  And 
just  as  his  mother  had  vanished  utterly  from  his  reach, 
so  now  it  seemed  Cissie  was  no  more.  Cissie  the  clear- 
eyed,  Cissie  the  ambitious,  Cissie  the  refined,  had 
vanished  away,  and  in  her  place  stood  a  thief. 

146 


BIRTHRIGHT  147 

The  thing  was  grotesque.  Peter  began  a  sudden 
shuddering  in  the  cold.  Then  he  began  moving 
toward  the  empty  cabin  where  he  slept  and  kept  his 
things.  He  moved  along,  talking  to  himself  in  the 
dusty  emptiness  of  the  crescent.  He  decided  that  he 
would  go  home,  pack  his  clothes,  and  vanish.  A  St. 
Louis  boat  would  be  down  that  night,  and  he  would 
just  have  time  to  pack  his  clothes  and  catch  it.  He 
would  not  take  his  books,  his  philosophies.  He  would 
let  them  remain,  in  the  newspapered  room,  until  all 
crumbled  into  uniform  philosophic  dust,  and  the  teach- 
ings of  Aristotle  blew  about  Niggertown. 

Then,  as  he  thought  of  traveling  North,  the  vision 
of  the  honeymoon  he  had  just  planned  revived  his 
numb  brain  into  a  dismal  aching.  He  looked  back 
through  the  dusk  at  the  Dildine  roof.  It  stood  black 
against  an  opalescent  sky.  Out  of  the  foreground, 
bending  over  it,  arose  a  clump  of  tall  sunflowers,  in 
whose  silhouette  hung  a  suggestion  of  yellow  and 
green.  The  whole  scene  quivered  slightly  at  every 
throb  of  his  heart.  He  thought  what  a  fool  he  was  to 
allow  a  picaresque  past  to  keep  him  away  from  such  a 
woman,  how  easy  it  would  be  to  go  back  to  the  soft 
luxury  of  Cissie,  to  tell  her  it  made  no  difference ;  and 
somehow,  just  at  that  moment  it  seemed  not  to. 

Then  the  point  of  view  which  Peter  had  been  four 
years  acquiring  swept  away  the  impulse,  and  it  left  him 
moving  toward  his  cabin  again,  empty,  cold,  and  plan- 
less. 


148  BIRTHRIGHT 

He  was  drawn  out  of  his  reverie  by  the  soft  voice 
of  a  little  negro  boy  asking  him  apprehensively  whom 
he  was  talking  to. 

Peter  stopped,  drew  forth  a  handkerchief,  and 
dabbed  the  moisture  from  his  cold  face  in  the  me- 
ticulous fashion  of  college  men. 

With  the  boy  came  a  dog  which  was  cautiously 
smelling  Peter's  shoes  and  trousers.  Both  boy  and 
dog  were  investigating  the  phenomenon  of  Peter. 
Peter,  in  turn,  looked  down  at  them  with  a  feeling  that 
they  had  materialized  out  of  nothing. 

"What  did  you  say?"  he  asked  vaguely. 

The  boy  was  suddenly  overcome  with  the  excessive 
shyness  of  negro  children,  and  barely  managed  to 
whisper : 

"I — I  ast  wh-who  you  wuz  a-talkin'  to." 

"Was  I  talking?" 

The  little  negro  nodded,  undecided  whether  to  stand 
his  ground  or  flee.  Peter  touched  the  child's  crisp 
hair. 

'T  was  talking  to  myself,"  he  said,  and  moved  for- 
ward again. 

The  child  instantly  gained  confidence  at  the  slight 
caress,  took  a  fold  of  Peter's  trousers  in  his  hand  for 
friendliness,  and  the  two  trudged  on  together. 

"Wh-whut  you  talkin'  to  yo'  se'f  for?' 

Peter  glanced  down  at  the  little  black  head  that 
promised  to  think  up  a  thousand  questions. 

*T  was  wondering  where  to  go." 


BIRTHRIGHT  149 

"Lawsy!  is  you  los'  yo'  way?" 

He  stroked  the  little  head  with  a  rush  of  self-pity. 

**Yes,  I  have,  son;  I  've  completely  lost  my  way." 

The  child  twisted  his  head  around  and  peered  up 
alongside  Peter's  arm.     Presently  he  asked : 

"Ain't  you  Mr.  Peter  Siner?" 

*'Yes." 

*'Ain't  you  de  man  whut  's  gwine  to  ma'y  Miss 
Cissie  Dildine?" 

Peter  looked  down  at  his  small  companion  with  a 
certain  concern  that  his  marriage  was  already  gossip 
known  to  babes. 

**I  'm  Peter  Siner,"  he  repeated. 

"Den  I  knows  which  way  you  wants  to  go,"  piped 
the  youngster  in  sudden  helpfulness.  "You  wants  to 
go  over  to  Cap'n  Renfrew's  place  acrost  de  Big  Hill. 
He  done  sont  fuh  you.  Mr.  Wince  Washington  tol' 
me,  ef  I  seed  you,  to  tell  you  dat  Cap'n  Renfrew  wants 
to  see  you.  I  dunno  whut  hit 's  about.  I  ast  Wince, 
an'  he  did  n'  know." 

Peter  recalled  the  message  Nan  Berry  had  given 
him  some  hours  before.  Now  the  same  summons  had 
seeped  around  to  him  from  another  direction. 

"I — I  '11  show  you  de  way  to  Cap'n  Renfrew's  ef — 
ef  you  '11  come  back  wid  me  th'ugh  de  cedar  glade," 
proposed  the  child.  "I — I  ain't  skeered  in  de  cedar 
glade,  b-b-but  hit 's  so  dark  I  kain't  see  my  way  back 
home.     I— I—" 

Peter  thanked  him  and  declined  his  services.     After 


I50  BIRTHRIGHT 

all,  he  might  as  well  go  to  see  Captain  Renfrew.  He 
owed  the  old  gentleman  some  thanks — and  ten  dollars. 

The  only  thing  of  which  Peter  Siner  was  aware 
during  his  walk  over  the  Big  Hill  and  through  the  vil- 
lage was  his  last  scene  with  Cissie.  He  went  over  it 
again  and  again,  repeating  their  conversation,  invent- 
ing new  replies,  framing  new  action,  questioning  more 
fully  into  the  octoroon's  vague  confession  and  his  be- 
numbed acceptance  of  it.  The  moment  his  mind  com- 
pleted the  little  drama  it  started  again  from  the  very 
beginning. 

At  Captain  Renfrew's  gate  this  mental  mummery 
paused  long  enough  for  him  to  vacillate  between  walk- 
ing in  or  going  around  and  shouting  from  the  back 
gate.  It  is  a  point  of  etiquette  in  Hooker's  Bend  that 
negroes  shall  enter  a  white  house  from  the  back  stoop. 
Peter  had  no  desire  to  transgress  this  custom.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  Captain  Renfrew  was  receiving  him  as 
a  fellow  of  Harvard,  the  back  door,  in  its  way,  would 
prove  equally  embarrassing. 

After  a  certain  indecision  he  compromised  by  en- 
tering the  front  gate  and  calling  the  Captain's  name 
from  among  the  scattered  bricks  of  the  old  walk. 

The  house  lay  silent,  half  smothered  in  a  dark 
tangle  of  shrubbery.  Peter  called  twice  before  he 
heard  the  shuffle  of  house  slippers,  and  then  saw  the 
Captain's  dressing-gown  at  the  piazza  steps. 

**Is  that  you,  Peter?"  came  a  querulous  voice. 

"Yes,  Captain.     I  was  told  you  wanted  to  see  me/' 


BIRTHRIGHT  151 

"You  've  been  deliberate  in  coming,"  criticized  the 
old  gentleman,  testily.  "I  sent  you  word  by  some 
black  rascal  three  days  ago." 

"I  just  received  the  message  to-day."  Peter  re- 
mained discreetly  at  the  gate. 

*'Yes;  well,  come  in,  come  in.  See  if  you  can  do 
anything  with  this  damnable  lamp." 

The  old  man  turned  with  a  dignified  drawing-to- 
gether of  his  dressing-gown  and  moved  back.  Ap- 
parently, the  renovation  of  a  cranky  lamp  was  the 
whole  content  of  the  Captain's  summons  to   Peter. 

There  was  something  so  characteristic  in  this  inci- 
dent that  Peter  was  moved  to  a  vague  sense  of  mirth. 
It  was  just  like  the  old  regime  to  call  in  a  negro,  a 
special  negro,  from  ten  miles  away  to  move  a  jar  of 
ferns  across  the  lawn  or  trim  a  box  hedge  or  fix  a  lamp. 

Peter  followed  the  old  gentleman  around  to  the  back 
piazza  facing  his  study.  There,  laid  out  on  the  floor, 
were  all  the  parts  of  a  gasolene  lamp,  together  with  a 
pipe-wrench,  a  hammer,  a  little  old-fashioned  vise,  a 
bar  of  iron,  and  an  envelop  containing  the  mantels  and 
the  more  delicate  parts  of  the  lamp. 

*Tt  's  extraordinary  to  me,"  criticized  the  Captain, 
*  Vhy  they  can't  make  a  gasolene  lamp  that  will  go,  and 
remain  in  a  going  condition." 

"Has  it  been  out  of  fix  for  three  days  ?"  asked  Peter, 
sorry  that  the  old  gentleman  should  have  lacked  a  light 
for  so  long. 

"•No,"  growled  the  Captain;  "it  started  gasping  at 


I50  BIRTHRIGHT 

all,  he  might  as  well  go  to  see  Captain  Renfrew.  He 
owed  the  old  gentleman  some  thanks — and  ten  dollars. 

The  only  thing  of  which  Peter  Siner  was  aware 
during  his  walk  over  the  Big  Hill  and  through  the  vil- 
lage was  his  last  scene  with  Cissie.  He  went  over  it 
again  and  again,  repeating  their  conversation,  invent- 
ing new  replies,  framing  new  action,  questioning  more 
fully  into  the  octoroon's  vague  confession  and  his  be- 
numbed acceptance  of  it.  The  moment  his  mind  com- 
pleted the  little  drama  it  started  again  from  the  very 
beginning. 

At  Captain  Renfrew's  gate  this  mental  mummery 
paused  long  enough  for  him  to  vacillate  between  walk- 
ing in  or  going  around  and  shouting  from  the  back 
gate.  It  is  a  point  of  etiquette  in  Hooker's  Bend  that 
negroes  shall  enter  a  white  house  from  the  back  stoop. 
Peter  had  no  desire  to  transgress  this  custom.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  Captain  Renfrew  was  receiving  him  as 
a  fellow  of  Harvard,  the  back  door,  in  its  way,  would 
prove  equally  embarrassing. 

After  a  certain  indecision  he  compromised  by  en- 
tering the  front  gate  and  calling  the  Captain's  name 
from  among  the  scattered  bricks  of  the  old  walk. 

The  house  lay  silent,  half  smothered  in  a  dark 
tangle  of  shrubbery.  Peter  called  twice  before  he 
heard  the  shuffle  of  house  slippers,  and  then  saw  the 
Captain's  dressing-gown  at  the  piazza  steps. 

*Ts  that  you,  Peter?"  came  a  querulous  voice. 

'*Yes,  Captain.     I  was  told  you  wanted  to  see  me.'* 


BIRTHRIGHT  151 

"You  *ve  been  deliberate  in  coming,"  criticized  the 
old  gentleman,  testily.  "I  sent  you  word  by  some 
black  rascal  three  days  ago." 

"I  just  received  the  message  to-day."  Peter  re- 
mained discreetly  at  the  gate. 

*'Yes;  well,  come  in,  come  in.  See  if  you  can  do 
anything  with  this  damnable  lamp." 

The  old  man  turned  with  a  dignified  drawing-to- 
gether of  his  dressing-gown  and  moved  back.  Ap- 
parently, the  renovation  of  a  cranky  lamp  was  the 
whole  content  of  the  Captain's   summons  to   Peter. 

There  was  something  so  characteristic  in  this  inci- 
dent that  Peter  was  moved  to  a  vague  sense  of  mirth. 
It  was  just  like  the  old  regime  to  call  in  a  negro,  a 
special  negro,  from  ten  miles  away  to  move  a  jar  of 
ferns  across  the  lawn  or  trim  a  box  hedge  or  fix  a  lamp, 

Peter  followed  the  old  gentleman  around  to  the  back 
piazza  facing  his  study.  There,  laid  out  on  the  floor, 
were  all  the  parts  of  a  gasolene  lamp,  together  with  a 
pipe-wrench,  a  hammer,  a  little  old-fashioned  vise,  a 
bar  of  iron,  and  an  envelop  containing  the  mantels  and 
the  more  delicate  parts  of  the  lamp. 

*Tt  's  extraordinary  to  me,"  criticized  the  Captain, 
"why  they  can't  make  a  gasolene  lamp  that  will  go,  and 
remain  in  a  going  condition." 

"Has  it  been  out  of  fix  for  three  days  ?"  asked  Peter, 
sorry  that  the  old  gentleman  should  have  lacked  a  light 
for  so  long. 

^''No,"  growled  the  Captain;  "it  started  gasping  at 


154  BIRTHRIGHT 

apology  for  the  octoroon  girl.  The  height  and  the 
reach  of  the  piazza,  exaggerated  by  the  darkness,  sug- 
gested a  time  when  retinues  of  negroes  passed  through 
its  dignified  colonnades.  Those  black  folk  were  a 
part  of  the  place.  They  came  and  went,  picked  up 
and  used  what  they  could,  and  that  was  all  life  held  for 
them.  They  were  without  wage,  without  rights,  even 
to  the  possession  of  their  own  bodies;  so  by  necessity 
they  took  what  they  could.  That  was  only  fifty-odd 
years  ago.  Thus,  in  a  way,  Peter's  surroundings  be- 
gan a  subtle  explanation  of  and  apology  for  Cissie,  the 
whole  racial  training  of  black  folk  in  petty  thievery. 
And  that  this  should  have  touched  Cissie — the  mean- 
ness, the  pathos  of  her  fate  moved  Peter. 

The  negro  was  aroused  from  his  reverie  by  the  old 
Captain's  getting  out  of  his  chair  and  saying,  "Very 
good,"  and  then  Peter  saw  that  he  had  finished  the 
lamp.  The  two  men  rose  and  carried  it  into  the  study, 
where  Peter  pumped  and  lighted  it ;  a  bit  later  its  bril- 
liant white  light  flooded  the  room. 

"Quite  good.'*  The  old  Captain  stood  rubbing  his 
hands  with  his  odd  air  of  continued  delight.  "How 
do  you  like  this  place,  anyway,  Peter?"  He  wrapped 
his  gown  around  him,  sat  down  in  the  old  Morris  chair 
beside  the  book-piled  table,  and  indicated  another  seat 
for  Peter. 

The  mulatto  took  it,  aware  of  a  certain  flexing  of 
Hooker's  Bend  custom,  where  negroes,  unless  old  or 
infirm,  are  not  supposed  to  sit  in  the  presence  of  whites. 


BIRTHRIGHT  155 

**Do  you  mean  the  study,  Captain?" 

"Yes,  the  study,  the  whole  place/* 

*Tt 's  very  pleasant,"  replied  Peter;  "it  has  the  at- 
mosphere of  age." 

Captain  Renfrew  nodded. 

"These  old  places,"  pursued  Peter,  "always  give  me 
an  impression  of  statesmanship,  somehow.  I  always 
think  of  grave  old  gentlemen  busy  with  the  cares  of 
public  poHcy." 

The  old  man  seemed  gratified. 

"You  are  sensitive  to  atmosphere.  If  I  may  say  it, 
every  Southron  of  the  old  regime  was  a  statesman  by 
nature  and  training.  The  complete  care  of  two  or 
three  hundred  negroes,  a  regard  for  their  bodily,  moral, 
and  spiritual  welfare,  inevitably  led  the  master  into 
the  impersonal  attitude  of  statecraft.  It  was  a  train- 
ing, sir,  in  leadership,  in  social  thinking,  in,  if  you 
please,  altruism."  The  old  gentleman  thumped  the 
arm  of  his  chair  with  a  translucent  palm.  "Yes,  sir, 
negro  slavery  was  God's  great  lesson  to  the  South  in 
altruism  and  loving-kindness,  sir!  My  boy,  I  do  be- 
lieve with  all  my  heart  that  the  institution  of  slavery 
was  placed  here  in  God's  country  to  rear  up  giants  of 
political  leadership,  that  our  nation  might  weather  the 
revolutions  of  the  world.  Oh,  the  Yankees  are  neces- 
sary! I  know  that!"  The  old  Captain  held  up  a 
palm  at  Peter  as  if  repressing  an  imminent  retort.  *T 
know  the  Yankees  are  the  Marthas  of  the  nation. 
They  furnish  food  and  fuel  to  the  ship  of  state,  but, 


156  BIRTHRIGHT 

my  boy,  the  reservoir  of  our  country's  spiritual  and 
mental  strength,  the  Mary  of  our  nation,  must  always 
be  the  South.     Virginia  is  the  mother  of  Presidents !" 

The  Captain's  oration  left  him  rather  breathless. 
He  paused  a  moment,  then  asked: 

"Peter,  have  you  ever  thought  that  v^e  men  of  the 
leisure  class  owe  a  debt  to  the  v^orld?" 

Peter  smiled. 

"I  know  the  theory  of  the  leisure  class,  but  I  Ve  had 
very  little  practical  experience  with  leisure." 

*'Well,  that 's  a  subject  close  to  my  heart.  As  a 
scholar  and  a  thinker,  I  feel  that  I  should  give  the  fruits 
of  my  leisure  to  the  world.  Er — in  fact,  Peter,  that 
is  why  I  sent  for  you  to  come  and  see  me." 

''Why  you  sent  for  me?"  Peter  was  surprised  at 
this  turn. 

''Precisely.     You." 

Here  the  old  gentleman  got  himself  out  of  his  chair, 
walked  across  to  one  of  a  series  of  drawers  in  his  book- 
cases, opened  it,  and  took  out  a  sheaf  of  papers  and  a 
quart  bottle.  He  brought  the  papers  and  the  bottle 
back  to  the  table,  made  room  for  them,  put  the  papers 
in  a  neat  pile,  and  set  the  bottle  at  a  certain  distance 
from  the  heap. 

"Now,  Peter,  please  hand  me  one  of  those  wine- 
glasses in  the  religious  section  of  my  library — I  always 
keep  two  or  three  glasses  among  my  religious  works, 
in  memory  of  the  fact  that  our  Lord  and  Master 
wrought  a  miracle  at  the  feast  of  Cana,  especially  to 


BIRTHRIGHT  157 

bless  the  cup.  Indeed,  Peter,  thinking  of  that  miracle 
at  the  wedding- feast,  I  wonder,  sir,  how  the  prohibi- 
tionists can  defend  their  conduct  even  to  their  own 
consciences,  because  logically,  sir,  logically,  the  miracle 
of  our  gracious  Lord  completely  cuts  away  the  ground 
from  beneath  their  feet ! 

''No  wonder,  when  the  Mikado  sent  a  Japanese  en- 
voy to  America  to  make  a  tentative  examination  of 
Christianity  as  a  proper  creed  for  the  state  religion  of 
Japan — no  wonder,  with  this  miracle  flouted  by  the 
prohibitionists,  the  embassy  carried  back  the  report  that 
Americans  really  have  no  faith  in  the  religion  they  pro- 
fess. Shameful!  Shameful!  Place  the  glass  there 
on  the  left  of  the  bottle.  A  little  farther  away  from 
the  bottle,  please,  just  a  trifle  more.     Thank  you." 

The  Captain  poured  himself  a  tiny  glassful,  and  its 
bouquet  immediately  filled  the  room.  There  was  no 
guessing  how  old  that  whisky  was. 

"I  will  not  break  the  laws  of  my  country,  Peter,  no 
matter  how  godless  and  sacrilegious  those  laws  may 
be ;  therefore  I  cannot  offer  you  a  drink,  but  you  will 
observe  a  second  glass  among  the  religious  works,  and 
the  bottle  sits  in  plain  view  on  the  table — er — em." 
He  watched  Peter  avail  himself  of  his  opportunity, 
and  then  added,  "Now,  you  may  just  drink  to  me, 
standing,  as  you  are,  like  that." 

They  drank,  Peter  standing,  the  old  gentleman 
seated. 

'Tt  is  just  as  necessary,"  pursued  the  old  connois- 


158  BIRTHRIGHT 

seur,  when  Peter  was  reseated,  ''it  is  just  as  necessary 
for  a  gentleman  to  have  a  delicate  palate  for  the  tints 
of  the  vine  as  it  is  for  him  to  have  a  delicate  eye  for  the 
tints  of  the  palette.  Nature  bestowed  a  taste  both  in 
art  and  wine  on  man,  which  he  should  strive  to  im- 
prove at  every  opportunity.  It  is  a  gift  from  God. 
Perhaps  you  would  like  another  glass.  No?  Then 
accommodate  me." 

He  drained  this  one,  with  Peter  standing,  worked  his 
withered  lips  back  and  forth  to  experience  its  full 
taste,  then  swallowed,  and  smacked. 

''Now,  Peter,"  he  said,  "the  reason  I  asked  you  to 
come  to  see  me  is  that  I  need  a  man  about  this  house. 
That  will  be  one  phase  of  your  work.  The  more  im- 
portant part  is  that  you  shall  serve  as  a  sort  of  secre- 
tary. I  have  here  a  manuscript."  He  patted  the  pile 
of  papers.  "My  handwriting  is  rather  difficult.  I 
want  you  to  copy  this  matter  out  and  get  it  ready  for 
the  printer." 

Peter  became  more  and  more  astonished. 

"Are  you  offering  me  a  permanent  place,  Captain 
Renfrew?"   he  asked. 

The  old  man  nodded. 

"I  need  a  man  with  a  certain  liberality  of  culture. 
I  will  no  doubt  have  you  run  through  books  and 
periodicals  and  make  note  of  any  points  germane  to 
my  thesis." 

Peter  looked  at  the  pile  of  script  on  the  table. 

"That  is  very  flattering.  Captain;  but  the  fact  is,  I 


BIRTHRIGHT  159 

came  by  your  place  at  this  hour  because  I  am  just  in 
the  act  of  leaving  here  on  the  steamboat  to-night." 

The  Captain  looked  at  Peter  with  concern  on  his 
face.     "Leaving  Hooker's  Bend?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Why?" 

Peter  hesitated. 

"Well,  my  mother  is  dead — " 

"Yes,  but  your — your — your  work  is  still  here, 
Peter."  The  Captain  fell  into  a  certain  confusion. 
"A  man's  work,  Peter;  a  man's  work." 

"Do  you  mean  my  school-teaching?" 

Then  came  a  pause.  The  conversation  somehow 
had  managed  to  leave  them  both  somewhat  at  sea. 
The  Captain  began  again,  in  a  different  tone: 

"Peter,  I  wish  you  to  remain  here  with  me  for  an- 
other reason.  I  am  an  old  man,  Peter.  Anything 
could  happen  to  me  here  in  this  big  house,  and  nobody 
would  know  it.  I  don't  like  to  think  of  it."  The  old 
man's  tone  quite  painted  his  fears.  "I  am  not  afraid 
of  death,  Peter.  I  have  walked  before  God  all  my  life 
save  in  one  or  two  points,  which,  I  believe,  in  His 
mercy.  He  has  forgiven  me;  but  I  cannot  endure  the 
idea  of  being  found  here  some  day  in  some  unconsid- 
ered posture,  fallen  out  of  a  chair,  or  a-sprawl  on 
the  floor.  I  wish  to  die  with  dignity,  Peter,  as  I  have 
lived." 

"Then  you  mean  that  you  want  me  to  stay  here  with 
you  until — until  the  end,  Captain?" 


i6o  BIRTHRIGHT 

The  old  man  nodded. 

'That  is  my  desire,  Peter,  for  an  honorarium  which 
you  yourself  shall  designate.  At  my  death,  you  will 
receive  some  proper  portion  of  my  estate;  in  fact,  the 
bulk  of  my  estate,  because  I  leave  no  other  heirs.  I 
am  the  last  Renfrew  of  my  race,  Peter." 

Peter  grew  more  and  more  amazed  as  the  old  gentle- 
man unfolded  this  strange  proposal.  What  queerer, 
pleasanter  berth  could  he  find  than  that  offered  him 
here  in  the  quietude  of  the  old  manor,  among  books, 
tending  the  feeble  flame  of  this  old  aristocrat's  life? 
An  air  of  scholasticism  hung  about  the  library.  In 
some  corner  of  this  dark  oaken  library  his  philosophies 
would  rest  comfortably. 

Then  it  occurred  to  Peter  that  he  would  have  to  con- 
tinue his  sleeping  and  eating  in  Niggertown,  and  since 
his  mother  had  died  and  his  rupture  with  Cissie,  the 
squalor  and  smells  of  the  crescent  had  become  impos- 
sible. He  told  the  old  Captain  his  objections  as  diplo- 
matically as  possible.  The  old  man  made  short  work 
of  them.  He  wanted  Peter  to  sleep  in  the  manor  with- 
in calling  distance,  and  he  might  begin  this  very  night 
and  stay  on  for  a  week  or  so  as  a  sort  of  test  whether  he 
liked  the  position  or  not.  The  Captain  waited  with 
some  concern  until  Peter  agreed  to  a  trial. 

After  that  the  old  gentleman  talked  on  interminably 
of  the  South,  of  the  suffrage  movement,  the  destruc- 
tive influence  it  would  have  on  the  home,  the  Irish  ques- 
tion, the  Indian  question,  whether  th^  mound-builders 


BIRTHRIGHT  i6i 

did  not  spring  from  the  two  lost  tribes  of  Israel — an 
endless  outpouring  of  curious  facts,  quaint  reasoning, 
and  extraordinary  conclusions,  all  delivered  with  the 
great  dignity  and  in  the  flowing  periods  of  an  orator. 

It  was  fully  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  when  it  oc- 
curred to  the  Captain  that  his  new  secretary  might  like 
to  go  to  bed.  The  old  man  took  the  hand-lamp  which 
was  still  burning  and  led  the  way  out  to  the  back  pi- 
azza past  a  number  of  doors  to  a  corner  bedroom.  He 
shuffled  along  in  his  carpet  slippers,  followed  by  the 
black-and-white  cat,  which  ran  along,  making  futile 
efforts  to  rub  itself  against  his  lean  shanks.  Peter 
followed  in  a  sort  of  stupor  from  the  flood  of  words, 
ideas,  and  strange  fancies  that  had  been  poured  into 
his  ears. 

The  Captain  turned  off  the  piazza  into  one  of  those 
old-fashioned  Southern  rooms  with  full-length  win- 
dows, which  were  really  glazed  doors,  a  ceiling  so  high 
that  Peter  could  make  out  only  vague  concentric  rings 
of  stucco-work  among  the  shadows  overhead,  and  a 
floor  space  of  ball-room  proportions.  In  one  corner 
was  a  huge  canopy  bed,  across  from  it  a  clothes-press 
of  dark  wood,  and  in  another  corner  a  large  screen 
hiding  the  bathing  arrangements. 

Peter's  bedroom  was  a  sleeping  apartment,  in  the 
old  sense  of  the  word  before  the  term  "apartment"  had 
lost  its  dignity. 

The  Captain  placed  the  lamp  on  the  great  table  and 
indicated  Peter's  possession  with  a  wave  of  the  hand. 


i62  BIRTHRIGHT 

*Tf  you  stay  here,  Peter,  I  will  put  in  a  call-bell,  so  I 
can  awaken  you  if  I  need  you  during  the  night.  Now 
I  wish  you  healthful  slumbers  and  pleasant  dreams." 
With  that  the  old  gentleman  withdrew  ceremoniously. 

When  the  Captain  was  gone,  the  mulatto  remained 
standing  in  the  vast  expanse,  marveling  over  this  queer 
turn  of  fortune.  Why  Captain  Renfrew  had  selected 
him  as  a  secretary  and  companion  Peter  could  not 
fancy. 

The  magnificence  of  his  surroundings  revived  his 
late  dream  of  a  honeymoon  with  Cissie.  Certainly,  in 
his  fancy,  he  had  visioned  a  honeymoon  in  Pullman 
parlor  cars  and  suburban  bungalows.  He  had  been 
mistaken.  This  great  chamber  rose  about  him  like  a 
corrected  proof  of  his  desire. 

Into  just  such  a  room  he  would  like  to  lead  Cissie; 
into  this  great  room  that  breathed  pride  and  dignity. 
What  a  glowing  heart  the  girl  would  have  made  for  its 
somber  magnificence! 

He  walked  over  to  the  full-length  windows  and 
opened  them ;  then  he  unbolted  the  jalousies  outside  and 
swung  them  back.  The  musk  of  autumn  weeds 
breathed  in  out  of  the  darkness.  Peter  drew  a  long 
breath,  with  a  sort  of  wistful  melting  in  his  chest. 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  TURMOIL  aroused  Peter  Siner  the  next  morn- 
ing, and  when  he  discovered  where  he  was,  in  the 
big  canopy  bed  in  the  great  room,  he  listened  curiously 
and  heard  a  continuous  chattering  and  quarreling 
After  a  minute  or  two  he  recognized  the  voice  of  old 
Rose  Hobbett.  Rose  was  cooking  the  Captain's 
breakfast,  and  she  performed  this  function  in  a  kind 
of  solitary  rage.  She  banged  the  vessels,  slammed  the 
stove-eyes  on  and  off,  flung  the  stove-wood  about,  and 
kept  up  a  snarling  animadversion  upon  every  topic  that 
drifted  through  her  kinky  head.  She  called  the 
kitchen  a  rat-hole,  stated  the  Captain  must  be  as  mean 
as  the  devil  to  live  as  long  as  he  did,  complained  that 
no  one  ever  paid  any  attention  to  her,  that  she  might 
as  well  be  a  stray  cat,  and  so  on. 

As  Peter  grew  wider  awake,  the  monotony  of  the  old 
negress's  rancor  faded  into  an  unobserved  noise.  He 
sat  up  on  the  edge  of  his  bed  between  the  parted  cur- 
tains and  divined  there  was  a  bath  behind  the  screen 
in  the  corner  of  his  room.  Sure  enough,  he  found  two 
frayed  but  clean  towels,  a  pan,  a  pitcher,  and  a  small 
tub  all  made  of  tin.  Peter  assembled  his  find  and 
began  splashing  his  heavily  molded  chest  with  a  feeling 

163 


i64  BIRTHRIGHT 

of  well-being.  As  he  splashed  on  the  water,  he  amused 
himself  by  listening  again  to  old  Rose.  She  was  now 
complaining  that  some  white  young  'uns  had  called  her 
"raving  Rose."  She  hoped  "God'lmighty  would  send 
down  two  she  bears  and  eat  'em  up."  Peter  was 
amazed  by  the  old  crone's  ability  to  maintain  an  unend- 
ing flow  of  concentrated  and  aimless  virulence. 

The  kitchen  of  the  Renfrew  manor  was  a  separate 
building,  and  presently  Peter  saw  old  Rose  carrying 
great  platters  across  the  weed-grown  compound  into 
the  dining-room.  She  bore  plate  after  plate  piled  high 
with  cookery, — enough  for  a  company  of  men.  A 
little  later  came  a  clangor  on  a  rusty  triangle,  as  if  she 
were  summoning  a  house  party.  Old  Rose  did  things 
in  a  wholesale  spirit. 

Peter  started  for  his  door,  but  when  he  had  opened 
the  shutter,  he  stood  hesitating.  Breakfast  introduced 
another  delicate  problem.  He  decided  not  to  go  to  the 
dining-room  at  once,  but  to  wait  and  allow  Captain 
Renfrew  to  indicate  whether  he,  Peter,  should  break 
his  fast  with  the  master  in  the  dining-room  or  with  old 
Rose  in  the  kitchen. 

A  moment  later  he  saw  the  Captain  coming  down  the 
long  back  piazza.  Peter  almost  addressed  his  host,  but 
the  old  Southerner  proceeded  into  the  dining-room 
apparently  without  seeing  Peter  at  all. 

The  guest  was  gathering  his  breath  to  call  good 
morning,  but  took  the  cue  with  a  negro's  sensitive- 
ness, and  let  his  eyes  run  along  the  weeds  in  the  com- 


BIRTHRIGHT  165 

pound.  The  drying  stalks  were  woven  with  endless 
spider-webs,  all  white  with  frost.  Peter  stood  re- 
garding their  delicate  geometries  a  moment  longer  and 
then  reentered  his  room,  not  knowing  precisely  what  to 
do.  He  could  hear  Rose  walking  across  the  piazza  to 
and  from  the  dining-room,  and  the  clink  of  tableware. 
A  few  minutes  later  a  knock  came  at  his  door,  and  the 
old  woman  entered  with  a  huge  salver  covered  with 
steaming  dishes. 

The  negress  came  into  the  room  scowling,  and  seemed 
doubtful  for  a  moment  just  how  to  shut  the  door  and 
still  hold  the  tray  with  both  hands.  She  solved  the 
problem  by  backing  against  the  door  tremendously. 
Then  she  saw  Peter.  She  straightened  and  stared  at 
him  with  outraged  dignity. 

'Well,  'fo'  Gawd!  Is  I  bringin'  dish-here  breakfus' 
to  a  nigger?" 

"I  suppose  it 's  mine,"  agreed  Peter,  amused. 

"But  whuffo,  whuffo,  nigger,  is  it  dat  you  ain't  come 
to  de  kitchen  an'  eat  off'n  de  shelf  ?   Is  you  sick  ?" 

Peter  admitted  fair  bodily  vigor. 

*'Den  whut  de  debbil  is  I  got  into!"  cried  Rose, 
angrily.  "I  ain't  gwine  wuck  at  no  sich  place,  ca'yni' 
breakfus'  to  a  big  beef  uv  a  nigger,  stout  as  a  mule. 
Say,  nigger,  wha-chu  doin'  in  heah,  anyway  ?  Hoccum 
dis?" 

Peter  tried  to  explain  that  he  was  there  to  do  a  little 
writing  for  the  Captain. 

"Well,  'fo'  Gawd,  when  niggers  gits  to  writin'  fuh 


i66  BIRTHRIGHT 

white  folks,  ants  '11  be  jumpin'  fuh  bullfrogs, — blTI 
havin'  other  niggers  bring  dey  breakfusses.  You  jes 
as  much  a  nigger  as  I  is,  Peter  Siner^,  de  brightes'  day 
you  ever  seen!" 

Peter  began  a  conciliatory  phrase. 

Old  Rose  banged  the  platter  on  the  table  and  then 
threatened : 

''Dis  is  de  las'  time  I  fetches  a  moufful  to  you,  Peter 
Siner,  or  any  other  nigger.  You  ain't  no  black  Jesus, 
even  ef  you  is  a  woods  calf." 

Peter  paused  in  drawing  a  chair  to  the  table. 

*'What  did  you  say,  Rose?"  he  asked  sharply. 

*'You  beared  whut  I  say." 

A  wave  of  anger  went  over  Peter. 

*'Yes,  I  did.  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  speak  ill 
of  the  dead." 

The  crone  tossed  her  malicious  head,  a  little  abashed, 
perhaps,  yet  very  glad  she  had  succeeded  in  hurting 
Peter.  She  turned  and  went  out  the  door,  mumbling 
something  which  might  have  been  apology  or  renewed 
invectives. 

Peter  watched  the  old  virago  close  the  door  and  then 
sat  down  to  his  breakfast.  His  anger  presenfly  died 
away,  and  he  sat  wondering  what  could  have  happened 
to  Rose  Hobbett  that  had  corroded  her  whole  ex- 
istence. Did  she  enjoy  her  vituperation,  her  contin- 
ual malice?     He  tried  to  imagine  how  she  felt. 

The  breakfast  Rose  had  brought  him  was  delicious : 
hot  biscuits  of  feathery  lightness,  three  wide  slices  of 


BIRTHRIGHT  167 

ham,  a  bowl  of  scrambled  eggs,  a  pot  of  coffee,  some 
preserved  raspberries,  and  a  tiny  glass  of  whisky. 

The  plate  which  Captain  Renfrew  had  set  before  his 
guest  was  a  delicate  dawn  pink  ringed  with  a  wreath 
of  holly.  It  was  old  Worcester  porcelain  of  about  the 
decade  of  1760.  The  coffee-pot  was  really  an  old 
Whieldon  teapot  in  broad  cauliflower  design.  Age 
and  careless  heating  had  given  the  surface  a  fine  reticu- 
lation. His  cup  and  saucer,  on  the  contrary,  were 
thick  pieces  of  ware  such  as  the  cabin-boys  toss  about 
on  steamboats.  The  whole  ceramic  melange  told  of 
the  fortuities  of  English  colonial  and  early  American 
life,  of  the  migration  of  families  westward.  No  doubt, 
once  upon  a  time,  that  dawn-pink  Worcester  had 
married  into  a  Whieldon  cauliflower  family.  A  queer 
sort  of  genealogy  might  be  traced  among  Southern 
families  through  their  mixtures  of  tableware. 

As  Peter  mused  over  these  implications  of  long  an- 
cestral lines,  it  reminded  him  that  he  had  none.  Over 
his  own  past,  over  the  lineage  of  nearly  every  negro  in 
the  South,  hung  a  curtain.  Even  the  names  of  the 
colored  folk  meant  nothing,  and  gave  no  hint  of  their 
kin  and  clan.  At  the  end  of  the  war  between  the  States, 
Peter's  people  had  selected  names  for  themselves,  casu- 
ally, as  children  pick  up  a  pretty  stone.  They  meant 
nothing.  It  occurred  to  Peter  for  the  first  time,  as  he 
sat  looking  at  the  chinaware,  that  he  knew  nothing 
about  himself;  whether  his  kinsmen  were  valiant  or 
recreant  he  did  not  know.     Even  his  own  father  he 


i68  BIRTHRIGHT 

knew  little  about  except  that  his  mother  had  said  his 
name  was  Peter,  like  his  own,  and  that  he  had  gone 
down  the  river  on  a  tie  boat  and  was  drowned. 

A  faint  sound  attracted  Peter's  attention.  He 
looked  out  at  his  open  window  and  saw  old  Rose  mak- 
ing off  the  back  way  with  something  concealed  under 
her  petticoat.  Peter  knew  it  was  the  unused  ham  and 
biscuits  that  she  had  cooked.  For  once  the  old  negress 
hurried  along  without  railing  at  the  world.  She  moved 
with  a  silent,  but,  in  a  way,  self-respecting,  flight. 
Peter  could  see  by  the  tilt  of  her  head  and  the  set  of 
her  shoulders  that  not  only  did  her  spoil  gratify  her 
enmity  to  mankind  in  general  and  the  Captain  in  par- 
ticular, but  she  was  well  within  her  rights  in  her  ac- 
quisition. She  disappeared  around  a  syringa  bush, 
and  was  heard  no  more  until  she  reappeared  to  cook 
the  noon  meal,  as  vitriolic  as  ever. 

When  Peter  entered  the  library,  old  Captain  Ren- 
frew greeted  him  with  morning  wishes,  thus  sustaining 
the  fiction  that  they  had  not  seen  each  other  before, 
that  morning. 

The  old  gentleman  seemed  pleased  but  somewhat 
excited  over  his  new  secretary.  He  moved  some  of 
his  books  aimlessly  from  one  table  to  another,  placed 
them  in  exact  piles  as  if  he  were  just  about  to  plunge 
into  heroic  labor,  and  could  not  give  time  to  such  de- 
tails once  he  had  begun. 


BIRTHRIGHT  169 

As  he  arranged  his  books  just  so,  he  cleared  his 
throat. 

''Now,  Peter,  we  want  to  get  down  to  this,"  he  an- 
nounced dynamically;  "do  this  thing,  shove  this  work 
out !"  He  started  with  tottery  briskness  around  to  his 
manuscript  drawer,  but  veered  off  to  the  left  to  aline 
some  magazines.  ''System,  Peter,  system.  Without 
system  one  may  well  be  hopeless  of  performing  any 
great  literary  labor ;  but  with  system,  the  constant  piling 
up  of  brick  on  brick,  stone  on  stone — it 's  the  way  Rome 
was  built,  my  boy." 

Peter  made  a  murmur  supposed  to  acknowledge  the 
correctness  of  this  view. 

Eventually  the  old  Captain  drew  out  his  drawer  of 
manuscript,  stood  fumbling  with  it  uncertainly.  Now 
and  then  he  glanced  at  Peter,  a  genuine  secretary  who 
stood  ready  to  help  him  in  his  undertaking.  The  old 
gentleman  picked  up  some  sheets  of  his  manuscript, 
seemed  about  to  read  them  aloud,  but  after  a  moment 
(Shook  his  head,  and  said,  "No,  we  '11  do  that  to-night," 
and  restored  them  to  their  places.  Finally  he  turned 
to  his  helper. 

"Now,  Peter,"  he  explained,  "in  doing  this  work,  I 
always  write  at  night.  It 's  quieter  then, — less  dis- 
traction. My  mornings  I  spend  downtown  in  con- 
versation with  my  friends.  If  you  should  need  me, 
Peter,  you  can  walk  down  and  find  me  in  front  of  the 
livery-stable.     I  sit  there  for  a  while  each  morning." 


I70  BIRTHRIGHT 

The  gravity  with  which  he  gave  this  schedule  of  his 
personal  habits  amused  Peter,  who  bowed  With  a 
serious,  ''Very  well,  Captain,'* 

''And  in  the  meantime,"  pursued  the  old  man,  looking 
vaguely  about  the  room,  "you  will  do  well  to  familiar- 
ize yourself  with  my  library  in  order  that  you  may  be 
properly  qualified  for  your  secretarial  labors." 

Peter  agreed  again. 

"And  now  if  you  will  get  my  hat  and  coat,  I  will  be 
off  and  let  you  go  to  work,"  concluded  the  Captain, 
with  an  air  of  continued  urgency. 

Peter  became  thoroughly  amused  at  such  an  out- 
come of  the  old  gentleman's  headlong  attack  on  his 
work, — a  stroll  down  to  the  village  to  hold  conversation 
with  friends.  The  mulatto  walked  unsmilingly  to  a 
little  closet  where  the  Captain  hung  his  things.  He 
took  down  the  old  gentleman's  tall  hat,  a  gray  great- 
coat worn  shiny  about  the  shoulders  and  tail,  and  a 
finely  carved  walnut  cane.  Some  reminiscence  of  the 
manners  of  butlers  which  Peter  had  seen  in  theaters 
caused  him  to  swing  the  overcoat  across  his  left  arm 
and  polish  the  thin  nap  of  the  old  hat  with  his  right 
sleeve.  He  presented  it  to  his  employer  with  a  certain 
duplication  of  a  butler's  obsequiousness.  He  offered 
the  overcoat  to  the  old  gentleman's  arms  with  the  same 
air.  Then  he  held  up  the  collar  of  the  greatcoat  with 
one  hand  and  with  the  other  reached  under  its  skirts, 
and  drew  down  the  Captain's  long  day  coat  with  little 
jerks,  as  if  he  were  going  through  a  ritual. 


BIRTHRIGHT  171 

Peter  grew  more  and  more  hilarious  over  his  barber's 
manners.  It  was  his  contribution  to  the  old  gentle- 
man's literary  labors,  and  he  was  doing  it  beautifully, 
so  he  thought.  He  was  just  making  some  minute  ad- 
justments of  the  collar  when,  to  his  amazement,  Cap- 
tain Renfrew  turned  on  him. 

"Damn  it,  sir!"  he  flared  out.  "What  do  you  think 
you  are  ?  I  did  n't  engage  you  for  a  kowtowing  valet 
in  waiting,  sir!  I  asked  you,  sir,  to  come  under  my 
roof  as  an  intellectual  co-worker,  as  one  gentleman 
asks  another,  and  here  you  are  making  these  niggery 
motions!  They  are  disgusting!  They  are  defiling! 
They  are  beneath  the  dignity  of  one  gentleman  to 
another,  sir!  What  makes  it  more  degrading,  I  per- 
ceive by  your  mannerism  that  you  assume  a  specious 
servility,  sir,  as  if  you  would  flatter  me  by  it !" 

The  old  lawyer's  face  was  white.  His  angry  old 
eyes  jerked  Peter  out  of  his  slight  mummery.  The 
negro  felt  oddly  like  a  grammar-school  boy  caught 
making  faces  behind  his  master's  back.  It  shocked 
him  into  sincerer  manners. 

"Captain,"  he  said  with  a  certain  stiffness,  "I  apolo- 
gize for  my  mistake ;  but  may  I  ask  how  you  desire  me 
to  act?" 

"Simply,  naturally,  sir,"  thundered  the  Captain,  "as 
one  alumnus  of  Harvard  to  another !  It  is  quite  proper 
for  a  young  man,  sir,  to  assist  an  old  gentleman  with  his 
hat  and  coat,  but  without  fripperies  and  genuflections 
and  absurdities !" 


172  BIRTHRIGHT 

The  old  man's  hauteur  touched  some  spring  of  re- 
sentment in  Peter.     He  shook  his  head. 

**No,  Captain;  our  lack  of  sympathy  goes  deeper 
than  manners.  My  position  here  is  anomalous.  For 
instance,  I  can  talk  to  you  sitting,  I  can  drink  with  you 
standing,  but  I  can't  breakfast  with  you  at  all.  I  do 
that  in  camera,  like  a  disgraceful  divorce  proceeding. 
It 's  precisely  as  I  was  treated  coming  down  here  South 
again ;  it 's  as  I  've  been  treated  ever  since  I ' ve  been 
back ;  it 's — "  He  paused  abruptly  and  swallowed  down 
the  rancor  that  filled  him.  "No,"  he  repeated  in  a 
different  tone,  "there  is  no  earthly  excuse  for  me  to 
remain  here.  Captain,  or  to  let  you  go  on  measuring 
out  your  indulgences  to  me.  There  is  no  way  for  us 
to  get  together  or  to  work  together — not  this  far  South. 
Let  me  thank  you  for  a  night's  entertainment  and  go." 

Peter  turned  about,  meaning  to  make  an  end  of  this 
queer  adventure. 

The  old  Captain  watched  him,  and  his  pallor  in- 
creased.    He  lifted  an  unsteady  hand. 

"No,  no,  Peter,"  he  objected,  "not  so  soon.  This 
has  been  no  trial,  no  fair  trial.  The  little — little — er — 
details  of  our  domestic  life  here,  they  will — er — ar- 
range themselves,  Peter.  Gossip — talk,  you  know,  we 
must  avoid  that."  The  old  lawyer  stood  staring  with 
strange  eyes  at  his  protege.  "I — I'm  interested  in 
you,  Peter.  My  actions  may  seem — odd,  but — er — a 
negro  boy  going  off  and  doing  what  you  have  done — 
extraordinary.     I — I    have    spoken  to   your   mother, 


BIRTHRIGHT  173 

Caroline,  about  you  often.  In  fact,  Peter,  I — I  made 
some  little  advances  in  order  that  you  might  complete 
your  studies.  Now,  now,  don't  thank  me!  It  was 
purely  impersonal.  You  seemed  bright.  I  have  often 
thought  we  gentle  people  of  the  South  ought  to  do 
more  to  encourage  our  black  folk — not — not  as  social 
equals — "  Here  the  old  gentleman  made  a  wry  mouth 
as  if  he  had  tasted  salt. 

"Stay  here  and  look  over  the  library,"  he  broke  off 
abruptly.  "We  can  arrange  some  ground  of — of  com- 
mon action,  some — " 

He  settled  the  lapels  of  his  great-coat  with  precision, 
addressed  his  palm  to  the  knob  of  his  stick,  and  marched 
stiffly  out  of  the  library,  around  the  piazza,  and  along 
the  dismantled  walk  to  the  front  gate. 

Peter  stood  utterly  astonished  at  this  strange  in- 
formation. Suddenly  he  ran  after  the  old  lawyer,  and 
rounded  the  turn  of  the  piazza  in  time  to  see  him  walk 
stiffly  down  the  shaded  street  with  tremulous  dignity. 
The  old  gentleman  was  much  the  same  as  usual,  a 
little  shakier,  perhaps,  his  tall  hat  a  little  more  polished, 
his  shiny  gray  overcoat  set  a  little  more  snugly  at  the 
collar. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  village  of  Hooker's  Bend  amuses  itself 
mainly  with  questionable  jests  that  range  all  the 
way  from  the  slightly  brackish  to  the  hopelessly  ob- 
scene. Now,  in  using  this  type  of  anecdote,  the 
Hooker's-Benders  must  not  be  thought  to  design  an 
attack  upon  the  decencies  of  life;  on  the  contrary,  they 
are  relying  on  the  fact  that  their  hearers  have,  in  the 
depths  of  their  beings,  a  profound  reverence  for  the 
object  of  their  sallies.  And  so,  by  taking  advantage 
of  the  moral  shock  they  produce  and  linking  it  to  the 
idea  of  an  absurdity,  they  convert  the  whole  psychical 
reaction  into  an  explosion  of  humor.  Thus  the  ring  of 
raconteurs  telling  blackguardly  stories  around  the 
stoves  in  Hooker's  Bend  stores,  are,  in  reality,  exer- 
cising one  another  in  the  more  delicate  sentiments  of 
life,  and  may  very  well  be  classed  as  a  round  table  of 
Sir  Galahads,  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche. 

However,  the  best  men  weary  in  well  doing,  and  for 
the  last  few  days  Hooker's  Bend  had  switched  from  its 
intellectual  staple  of  conversation  to  consider  the  com- 
edy of  Tump  Pack's  undoing.  The  incident  held  un- 
deniably comic  elements.  For  Tump  to  start  out 
carrying  a  forty- four,  meaning  to  blow  a  rival  out  of 
his  path,  and  to  wind  up  hard  at  work,  picking  cotton 

174 


BIRTHRIGHT  175 

at  nothing  a  day  for  a  man  whose  offer  of  three  dollars 
a  day  he  had  just  refused,  certainly  held  the  makings 
of  a  farce. 

On  the  heels  of  this  came  the  news  that  Peter  Siner 
meant  to  take  advantage  of  Tump's  arrest  and  marry 
Cissie  Dildine.  Old  Parson  Ranson  was  responsible 
for  the  spread  of  this  last  rumor.  He  had  fumbled 
badly  in  his  effort  to  hold  Peter's  secret.  Not  once, 
but  many  times,  always  guarded  by  a  pledge  of  secrecy, 
had  he  revealed  the  approaching  wedding.  When 
pressed  for  a  date,  the  old  negro  said  he  was  **not  at 
Hb'ty  to  tell." 

Up  to  this  point  white  criticism  viewed  the  stage- 
setting  of  the  black  comedy  with  the  impersonal 
interest  of  a  box  party.  Some  of  the  round  table  said 
they  believed  there  would  be  a  dead  coon  or  so  before 
the  scrape  was  over. 

Dawson  Bobbs,  the  ponderous  constable,  went  to 
the  trouble  to  telephone  Mr.  Cicero  Throgmartin,  for 
whom  Tump  was  working,  cautioning  Throgmartin  to 
make  sure  that  Tump  Pack  was  in  the  sleeping-shack 
every  night,  as  he  might  get  wind  of  the  wedding  and 
take  a  notion  to  bolt  and  stop  it.  "You  know,  you 
can't  tell  what  a  fool  nigger  '11  do,"  finished  Bobbs. 

Throgmartin  was  mildly  amused,  promised  the  neces- 
sary precautions,  and  said: 

*Tt  looks  like  Peter  has  put  one  over  on  Tump,  and 
maybe  a  college  education  does  help  a  nigger  some, 
after  all" 


176  BIRTHRIGHT 

The  constable  thought  it  was  just  luck. 

"Well,  I  dunno,"  said  Throgmartin,  who  was  a 
philosopher,  and  inclined  to  view  every  matter  from 
various  angles.  'Teter  may  of  worked  this  out  some- 
how." 

*'Have  you  heard  what  Henry  Hooker  done  to  Siner 
in  the  land  deal?" 

Throgmartin  said  he  had. 

*'No,  I  don't  mean  that.  I  mean  Henry's  last 
wrinkle  in  garnisheeing  old  Ca'line's  estate  in  his  bank 
for  the  rest  of  the  purchase  money  on  the  Dilihay 
place." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"You  don't  mean  it!" 

"Damn  'f  I  don't." 

The  constable's  sentence  shook  with  suppressed 
mirth,  and  the  next  moment  roars  of  laughter  came 
over  the  telephone  wire. 

"Say,  ain't  he  the  bird !" 

"He  's  the  original  early  bird.  I  'd  like  to  get  a 
snap-shot  of  the  worm  that  gets  away  from  him." 

Both  men  laughed  heartily  again. 

"But,  say,"  objected  Throgmartin,  who  was  some- 
thing of  a  lawyer  himself, — as,  indeed,  all  Southern 
men  are, — "I  thought  the  Sons  and  Daughters  of 
Benevolence  owed  Hooker,  not  Peter  Siner,  nor 
Ca'Hne's  estate." 

"Well,  it  is  the  Sons  and  Daughters,  but  Ca'line  was 
one  of  'em,  and  they  ain't  no  limited  li'bility  'socia- 


BIRTHRIGHT  177 

tion.  Henry  can  jump  on  anything  any  of  'em  's  got. 
Henry  got  the  Persimmon  to  bring  him  a  copy  of  their 
by-laws." 

''Well,  I  swear!  Say,  if  Henry  wasn't  kind  of 
held  back  by  his  religion,  he  'd  use  a  gun,  would  n't  he  ?" 

"I  dunno.  I  can  say  this  for  Henry's  religion :  It 's 
jest  like  Henry's  wife, — it 's  the  dearest  thing  to  his 
heart ;  he  'd  give  his  life  for  it,  but  it  don't  do  nobody  a 
damn  bit  of  good  except  jest  Henry." 

The  constable's  little  eyes  twinkled  as  he  heard 
Throgmartin  roaring  with  laughter  and  sputtering  ap- 
preciative oaths. 

At  that  moment  a  ringing  of  the  bell  jarred  the  ears 
of  both  telephonists.  A  voice  asked  for  Dr.  Jallup. 
It  was  an  ill  time  to  interrupt  two  gentlemen.  The 
flair  of  a  jest  is  lost  in  a  pause.  The  officer  stated 
sharply  that  he  was  the  constable  of  Wayne  County 
and  was  talking  business  about  the  county's  prisoners. 
His  tone  was  so  charged  with  consequence  that  the 
;voice  that  wanted  a  doctor  apologized  hastily  and 
ceased. 

Came  a  pause  in  which  neither  man  found  anything 
to  say.  Laughter  is  like  that, — a  gay  bubble  that  a 
touch  will  destroy.  Presently  Bobbs  continued, 
gravely  enough: 

'Talking  about  Siner,  he  's  stayin'  up  at  old  man 
Renfrew's  now." 

"'At  so?" 

"Old  Rose  Hobbett  swears  he  *s  doin'  some  sort  of 


178  BIRTHRIGHT 

writin'  up  there  and  livin'  in  one  of  the  old  man's  best 
rooms." 

"Hell  he  is  r 

"Yeah?"  the  constable's  voice  questioned  Throg- 
martin's  opinion  about  such  heresy  and  expressed  his 
own. 

"D'  recken  it's  so?  Old  Rose  is  such  a  thief  and 
a  liar." 

"Nope,"  declared  the  constable,  "the  old  nigger 
never  would  of  made  up  a  lie  like  that, — never  would 
of  thought  of  it.  Old  Cap'n  Renfrew  's  gettin'  child- 
ish; this  nigger's  takin'  advantage  of  it.  Down  at 
the  liver'-stable  the  boys  were  talkin'  about  Siner  goin' 
to  git  married,  an'  dern  if  old  man  Renfrew  did  n't  git 
cut  up  about  it!" 

"Well,"  opined  Throgmartin,  charitably,  "the  old 
man  livin'  there  all  by  himself — I  reckon  even  a  nigger 
is  some  comp'ny.  They  're  funny  damn  things,  nig- 
gers is ;  never  know  a  care  nor  trouble.  Lord !  I  wish 
I  was  as  care-free  as  they  are!" 

"Don't  you,  though!"  agreed  the  constable,  with  the 
weight  of  the  white  man's  burden  on  his  shoulders. 
For  this  is  a  part  of  the  Southern  credo, — that  all 
negroes  are  gay,  care-free,  and  happy,  and  that  if  one 
could  only  be  like  the  negroes,  gay,  care-free, 
and  happy —  Ah,  if  one  could  only  be  like  the 
negroes ! 

None  of  this  gossip  reached  Peter  directly,  but  a 
sort  of  back- wash  did  catch  him  keenly  through  young 


BIRTHRIGHT  179 

Sam  Arkwright  and  serve  as  a  conundrum  for  several 
days. 

One  morning  Peter  was  bringing  an  armful  of 
groceries  up  the  street  to  the  old  manor,  and  he  met  the 
boy  coming  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  negro's 
mind  was  centered  on  a  peculiar  problem  he  had  found 
in  the  Renfrew  library,  so,  according  to  a  habit  he 
had  acquired  in  Boston,  he  took  the  right-hand  side  of 
the  pavement,  which  chanced  to  be  the  inner  side. 
This  violated  a  Hooker's-Bend  convention,  which 
decrees  that  when  a  white  and  a  black  meet  on  the  side- 
walk, the  black  man  invariably  shall  take  the  outer 
side. 

For  this  faux  pas  the  gangling  youth  stopped  Peter, 
fell  to  abusing  and  cursing  him  for  his  impudence,  his 
egotism,  his  attempt  at  social  equality, — all  of  which 
charges,  no  doubt,  were  echoes  from  the  round  table. 
Such  wrath  over  such  an  offense  was  unusual.  Ordi- 
narily, a  white  villager  would  have  thought  several  un- 
complimentary things  about  Peter,  but  would  have 
said  nothing. 

Peter  stopped  with  a  shock  of  surprise,  then  listened 
to  the  whole  diatribe  with  a  rising  sense  of  irritation 
and  irony.  Finally,  without  a  word,  he  corrected  his 
mistake  by  retracing  his  steps  and  passing  Sam  again, 
this  time  on  the  outside. 

Peter  walked  on  up  the  street,  outwardly  calm,  but 
his  ears  burned,  and  the  queer  indignity  stuck  in  his 
mind.     As  he  went  along  he  invented  all  sorts  of  iron- 


i8o  BIRTHRIGHT 

ical  remarks  he  might  have  made  to  Arkwright,  which 
would  have  been  unwise;  then  he  thought  of  sober 
reasoning  he  could  have  used,  which  would  perhaps 
have  been  just  as  ill-advised.  Still  later  he  wondered 
why  Arkwright  had  fallen  into  such  a  rage  over  such 
a  trifle.  Peter  felt  sure  there  was  some  contributing 
rancor  in  the  youth's  mind.  Perhaps  he  had  received 
a  scolding  at  home  or  a  whipping  at  school,  or  perhaps 
he  was  in  the  midst  of  one  of  those  queer  attacks  of 
megalomania  from  which  adolescents  are  chronic 
sufferers.  Peter  fancied  this  and  that,  but  he  never 
came  within  hail  of  the  actual  reason. 

When  the  brown  man  reached  the  old  manor,  the 
quietude  of  the  library,  with  its  blackened  mahogany 
table,  its  faded  green  Axminster,  the  meridional  globe 
with  its  dusty  twinkle,  banished  the  incident  from  his 
mind.  He  returned  to  his  work  of  card-indexing  the 
Captain's  books.  He  took  half  a  dozen  at  a  time  from 
the  shelves,  dusted  them  on  the  piazza,  then  carried 
them  to  the  embrasure  of  the  window,  which  offered 
a  pleasant  light  for  reading  and  for  writing  the  cards. 

He  went  through  volume  after  volume, — speeches 
by  Clay,  Calhoun,  Yancy,  Prentiss,  Breckenridge ;  an 
old  life  of  General  Taylor,  Foxe's  "Book  of  Martyrs'* ; 
a  collection  of  the  old  middle-English  dramatists,  such 
as  Lillo,  Garrick,  Arthur  Murphy,  Charles  Macklin, 
George  Colman,  Charles  Coffey,  men  whose  plays  have 
long  since  declined  from  the  boards  and  disappeared 
from  the  reading-table. 


BIRTHRIGHT  i8i 

The  Captain's  collection  of  books  was  strongly 
colored  by  a  religious  cast, — John  Wesley's  sermons, 
'Charles  Wesley's  hymns ;  a  treatise  presenting  a  bibli- 
cal proof  that  negroes  have  no  souls ;  a  little  book  called 
^'Flowers  Gathered,"  which  purported  to  be  a  compila- 
tion of  the  sayings  of  ultra-pious  children,  all  of  whom 
died  young;  an  old  book  called  '^Elements  of  Criticism," 
by  Henry  Home  of  Kames;  another  tome  entitled 
"Studies  of  Nature,"  by  St.  Pierre.  This  last  was  a 
long  argument  for  the  miraculous  creation  of  the  world 
as  set  forth  in  Genesis.  The  proof  offered  was  a 
resume  of  the  vegetable,  animal,  and  mineral  kingdoms, 
showing  their  perfect  fitness  for  man's  use,  and  the 
immediate  induction  was  that  they  were  designed  for 
man's  use.  Still  another  work  calculated  the  exact 
age  of  the  earth  by  the  naive  method  of  counting  the 
generations  from  Adam  to  Christ,  to  the  total  adding 
eighteen  hundred  and  eighty-five  years  (for  the  book 
was  written  in  1885),  and  the  original  six  days  it 
required  the  Lord  to  build  the  earth.  By  referring  to 
Genesis  and  finding  out  precisely  what  the  Creator  did 
on  the  morning  of  the  first  day,  the  writer  contrived 
to  bring  his  calculation  of  the  age  of  the  earth  and 
everything  in  the  world  to  a  precision  of  six  hours, 
give  or  take, — a  somewhat  closer  schedule  than  that 
made  by  the  Tennessee  river  boats  coming  up  from 
St.  Louis. 

These  and  similar  volumes  formed  the  scientific 
section  of  Captain  Renfrew's  library,  and  it  was  this 


i82  BIRTHRIGHT 

paucity  of  the  natural  sciences  that  formed  the  problem 
which  Peter  tried  to  solve.  All  scientific  additions 
came  to  an  abrupt  stop  about  the  decade  of  188090. 
That  was  the  date  when  Charles  Darwin's  great  fruc- 
tifying theory,  enunciated  in  1859,  began  to  seep  into 
the  South. 

In  the  Captain's  library  the  only  notice  of  evolution 
was  a  book  called  "Darwinism  Dethroned."  As  for 
the  elaborations  of  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  by  Spen- 
cer, Fiske,  DeVries,  Weismann,  Haeckel,  Kidd,  Berg- 
son,  and  every  subsequent  philosophic  or  biologic 
writer,  all  these  men  might  never  have  written  a  line 
so  far  as  Captain  Renfrew's  library  was  informed. 

Now,  why  such  extraordinary  occlusions?  Why 
should  Captain  Renfrew  deny  himself  the  very  com- 
monplaces of  thought,  theories  familiarly  held  by  the 
rest  of  America,  and,  indeed,  by  all  the  rest  of  the 
civilized  world? 

Musing  by  the  window,  Peter  succeeded  in  stating 
his  problem  more  broadly:  Why  was  Captain  Ren- 
frew an  intellectual  reactionist?  The  old  gentleman 
was  the  reverse  of  stupid.  Why  should  he  confine 
his  selection  of  books  to  a  few  old  oddities  that  had 
lost  their  battle  against  a  theory  which  had  captured  the 
intellectual  world  fifty  years  before? 

Nor  was  it  Captain  Renfrew  alone.  'Now  and  then 
Peter  saw  editorials  appearing  in  leading  Southern 
journals,  seriously  attacking  the  evolutionary  hypoth- 
esis.    Ministers  in  respectable  churches  still   fulmi- 


BIRTHRIGHT  183 

nated  against  it.  Peter  knew  that  the  whole  South 
still  clings,  in  a  way,  to  the  miraculous  and  special  crea- 
tion of  the  earth  as  described  in  Genesis.  It  clings 
with  an  intransigentism  and  bitterness  far  exceeding 
any  other  part  of  America.  Why?  To  Peter  the 
problem  appeared  insoluble. 

He  sat  by  the  window  lost  in  his  reverie.  Just  out- 
side on  the  ledge  half  a  dozen  English  sparrows  abused 
one  another  with  chirps  that  came  faintly  through  the 
small  diamond  panes.  Their  quick  movements  held 
Peter's  eyes,  and  their  endless  quarreling  presently  re- 
called his  episode  with  young  Arkwright.  It  occurred 
to  him,  casually,  that  when  Arkwright  grew  up  he 
would  subscribe  to  every  reactionary  doctrine  set  forth 
in  the  library  Peter  was  indexing. 

With  that  thought  came  a  sort  of  mental  flare,  as  if 
he  were  about  to  find  the  answer  to  the  whole  question 
through  the  concrete  attack  made  on  him  by  Sam. 

It  is  an  extraordinary  feeling, — the  sudden,  joyful 
dawn  of  a  new  idea.  Peter  sat  up  sharply  and 
leaned  forward  with  a  sense  of  being  right  on  the 
fringe  of  a  new  and  a  great  perception.  Young  Ark- 
wright, the  old  Captain,  the  whole  South,  were  un- 
folding themselves  in  a  vast  answer,  when  a  movement 
outside  the  window  caught  the  negro's  introspective 
eyes. 

A  girl  was  passing ;  a  girl  in  a  yellow  dress  was  pass- 
ing the  Renfrew  gate.  Even  then  Peter  would  not 
have  wavered  in  his  synthesis  had  not  the  girl  paused 


i84  BIRTHRIGHT 

slightly  and  given  a  swift  side  glance  at  the  old  manor. 
Then  the  man  in  the  window  recognized  Cissie  Dildine. 

A  slight  shock  traveled  through  Siner's  body  at 
the  sight  of  Cissie's  colorless  face  and  darkened  eyes. 
He  stood  up  abruptly,  with  a  feeling  that  he  had  some 
urgent  thing  to  say  to  the  young  woman.  His  sharp 
movement  toppled  over  the  big  globe. 

The  crash  caused  the  girl  to  stop  and  look.  For  a 
moment  they  stood  thus,  the  girl  in  the  chill  street, 
the  man  in  the  pleasant  window,  looking  at  ea'ch  other. 
Next  moment  Cissie  hurried  on  up  the  village  street 
toward  the  Arkwright  house.  No  doubt  she  was  on 
her  way  to  cook  the  noon  meal. 

Peter  remained  standing  at  the  window,  with  a 
heavily  beating  heart.  He  watched  her  until  she 
vanished  behind  a  wing  of  the  shrubbery  in  the  Ren- 
frew yard. 

When  she  had  gone,  he  looked  at  his  books  and 
cards,  sat  down,  and  tried  to  resume  his  indexing. 
But  his  mind  played  away  from  it  like  a  restive  horse. 
It  had  been  two  weeks  since  he  last  saw  Cissie.  Two 
weeks.  .  .  .  His  nerves  vibrated  like  the  strings  of  a 
pianoforte.  He  had  scarcely -thought  of  her  during  the 
fortnight ;  but  now,  having  seen  her,  he  found  himself 
powerless  to  go  on  with  his  work.  He  pottered  a 
while  longer  among  the  books  and  cards,  but  they  were 
meaningless.  They  appeared  an  utter  futility.  Why 
index  a  lot  of  nonsense?  Somehow  this  recalled  his 
flare,  his  adumbration  of  some  great  idea  connected 


BIRTHRIGHT  185 

with  young  Arkwright  and  the  old  Captain,  and  the 
South. 

He  put  his  trembling  nerves  to  work,  trying  to  re- 
capture his  line  of  thought.  He  sat  for  ten  minutes, 
following  this  mental  train,  then  that,  losing  one,  grop- 
ing for  another.  His  thoughts  were  jumpy.  They 
played  about  Arkwright,  the  Captain,  Cissie,  his 
mother's  death,  Tump  Pack  in  prison,  the  quarrel  be- 
tween the  Persimmon  and  Jim  Pink  Staggs.  The 
whole  of  Niggertown  came  rushing  down  upon  him, 
seizing  him  in  its  passion  and  dustiness  and  greasiness, 
putting  to  flight  all  his  cultivated  white-man  ideas. 

After  half  an  hour's  searching  he  gave  it  up.  Be- 
fore he  left  the  room  he  stooped,  and  tried  to  set  up 
again  the  globe  that  the  passing  of  the  girl  had  caused 
him  to  throw  down;  but  its  pivot  was  out  of  plumb, 
and  he  had  to  lean  it  against  the  window-seat. 

The  sight  of  Captain  Renfrew  coming  in  at  the  gate 
sent  Peter  to  his  room.  The  hour  was  near  twelve, 
and  it  had  become  a  little  point  of  household  etiquette 
for  the  mulatto  and  the  white  man  not  to  be  together 
when  old  Rose  jangled  the  triangle.  By  this  means 
they  forestalled  the  mute  discourtesy  of  the  old  Cap- 
tain's walking  away  from  his  secretary  to  eat.  The 
subject  of  their  separate  meals  had  never  been  men- 
tioned since  their  first  acrimonious  morning.  The 
matter  had  dropped  into  the  abeyance  of  custom, 
just  as  the  old  gentleman  had  predicted. 

Peter  had  left  open  his  jalousies,  but  his  windows 


i86  BIRTHRIGHT 

were  closed,  and  now  as  he  entered  he  found  his  apart- 
ment flooded  with  sunshine  and  filled  with  that  equable 
warmth  that  comes  of  straining  sunbeams  through 
glass. 

He  prepared  for  dinner  with  his  mind  still  hovering 
about  Cissie.  He  removed  a  book  and  a  lamp  from 
the  lion-footed  table,  and  drew  up  an  old  chair  with 
which  the  Captain  had  furnished  his  room.  It  was  a 
delicate  old  Heppelwhite  of  rosewood.  It  had  lost  a 
finial  from  one  of  its' back  standards,  and  a  round  was 
gone  from  the  left  side.  Peter  never  moved  the  chair 
that  vague  plans  sometime  to  repair  it  did  not  occur 
to  him. 

When  he  had  cleared  his  table  and  placed  his  chair 
beside  it,  he  wandered  over  to  his  tall  west  window  and 
stood  looking  up  the  street  through  the  brilliant  sun- 
shine, toward  the  Arkwright  home.  No  one  was  in 
sight.  In  Hooker's  Bend  every  one  dines  precisely  at 
twelve,  and  at  that  hour  the  streets  are  empty.  It 
would  be  some  time  before  Cissie  came  back  down  the 
street  on  her  way  to  Niggertown.  She  first  would 
have  to  wash  and  put  away  the  Arkwright  dishes.  It 
would  be  somewhere  about  one  o'clock.  Nevertheless, 
he  kept  staring  out  through  the  radiance  of  the  autumn 
sunlight  with  an  irrational  feeling  that  she  might  ap- 
pear at  any  moment.  He  was  afraid  she  would  slip 
past  and  he  not  see  her  at  all.  The  thought  disturbed 
him  somewhat.  It  kept  him  sufficiently  on  the  alert 
to    stand   tapping   the   balls   of   his   fingers   against 


BIRTHRIGHT  187 

the  glass  and  looking  steadily  toward  the  Arkwright 
house. 

Presently  the  watcher  perceived  that  a  myriad 
spider-webs  filled  the  sunshine  with  a  delicate  dancing 
glister.  It  was  the  month  of  voyaging  spiders.  In- 
visible to  Peter,  the  tiny  spinners  climbed  to  the  tip- 
most  twigs  of  the  dead  weeds,  listed  their  abdomens, 
and  lassoed  the  wind  with  gossamer  lariats ;  then  they 
let  go  and  sailed  away  to  a  hazard  of  new  fortunes. 
The  air  was  full  of  the  tiny  adventurers.  As  he 
stared  up  the  street,  Peter  caught  the  glint  of  these  in- 
visible airships  whisking  away  to  whatever  chance 
might  hold  for  them.  There  was  something  epic  in  it. 
It  recalled  to  the  mulatto's  mind  some  of  Fabre's  lovely 
descriptions.  It  reminded  him  of  two  or  three  books 
on  entomology  which  he  had  left  in  his  mother's  cabin. 
He  felt  he  ought  to  go  after  them  while  the  spiders 
were  migrating.  He  suddenly  made  up  his  mind  he 
would  go  at  once,  as  soon  as  he  had  had  dinner ;  some- 
where about  one  o'clock. 

He  looked  again  at  the  Arkwright  house.  The 
thought  of  walking  down  the  street  with  Cissie,  to  get 
his  books,  quickened  his  heart. 

He  was  still  at  the  window  when  his  door  opened 
and  old  Rose  entered  with  his  dinner.  She  growled 
under  her  breath  all  the  way  from  the  door  to  the 
table  on  which  she  placed  the  tray.  Only  a  single 
phrase  detached  itself  and  stood  out  clearly  amid  her 
mutterings,  "Hope  it  chokes  you." 


i88  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter  arranged  his  chair  and  table  with  reference  to 
the  window,  so  he  could  look  up  the  street  while  he  was 
eating  his  dinner. 

The  ill-wishing  Rose  had  again  furnished  a  gour- 
met's meal,  but  Peter's  preoccupation  prevented  its 
careful  and  appreciative  gustation.  An  irrational  feel- 
ing of  the  octoroon's  imminence  spurred  him  to  fast 
eating.  He  had  hardly  begun  his  soup  before  he 
found  himself  drinking  swiftly,  looking  up  the  street 
over  his  spoon,  as  if  he  meant  to  rush  out  and  swing 
aboard  a  passing  train. 

Siner  checked  his  precipitation,  annoyed  at  himself. 
He  began  again,  deliberately,  with  an  attempt  to  keep 
his  mind  on  the  savor  of  his  food.  He  even  thought 
of  abandoning  his  little  design  of  going  for  the  books ; 
or  he  would  go  at  a  different  hour,  or  to-morrow,  or 
not  at  all.  He  told  himself  he  would  far  better  allow 
Cissie  Dildine  to  pass  and  repass  unspoken  to,  instead 
of  trying  to  arrange  an  accidental  meeting.  But  the 
brown  man's  nerves  would  n't  hear  to  it.  That  auto- 
matic portion  of  his  brain  and  spinal  column  which, 
physiologists  assert,  performs  three  fourths  of  a  man's 
actions  and  conditions  nine  tenths  of  his  volitions — that 
part  of  Peter  would  n't  consider  it.  It  began  to  get 
jumpy  and  scatter  havoc  in  Peter's  thoughts  at  the  mere 
suggestion  of  not  seeing  Cissie.  Imperceptibly  this 
radical  left  wing  of  his  emotions  speeded  up  his  meal 
again.  He  caught  himself,  stopped  his  knife  and  fork 
in  the  act  of  rending  apart  a  broiled  chicken. 


BIRTHRIGHT  189 

"Confound  it!  I  '11  start  when  she  comes  in  sight, 
no  matter  whether  I  Ve  finished  this  meal  or  not,"  he 
promised  himself. 

And  suddenly  he  felt  unhurried,  in  the  midst  of  a 
large  leisure,  with  a  savory  broiled  chicken  dinner  be- 
fore him, — not  exactly  before  him,  either;  most  of  it 
had  been  stuffed  away.  Only  the  fag-end  remained 
on  his  plate.  A  perfectly  good  meal  had  been  ruined 
by  an  ill-timed  resistance  to  temptation. 

The  glint  of  a  yellow  dress  far  up  the  street  had  just 
prompted  him  to  swift  action  when  the  door  opened 
and  old  Rose  put  her  head  in  to  say  that  Captain  Ren- 
frew wanted  to  see  Peter  in  the  library. 

The  brown  man  came  to  a  shocked  standstill. 

"What!     Right  now?"  he  asked. 

"Yeah,  right  now,"  carped  Rose.  "Ever'thing  he 
wants,  he  wants  right  now.  He  's  been  res'less  as  a 
cat  in  a  bulldog's  den  ever  sence  he  come  home  fuh  din- 
ner. Dunno  whut  's  come  into  he  ole  bones,  runnin' 
th'ugh  his  dinner  lak  a  razo'-back."  She  withdrew  in 
a  continued  mumble  of  censure. 

Peter  cast  a  glance  up  the  street,  timed  Cissie's  ar- 
rival at  the  front  gate,  picked  up  his  hat,  and  walked 
briskly  to  the  library  in  the  hope  of  finishing  any  busi- 
ness the  Captain  might  have,  in  time  to  encounter  the 
octoroon.  He  even  began  making  some  little  conver- 
sational plans  with  which  he  could  meet  Cissie  in  a 
simple,  unstudied  manner.  He  recalled  with  a  cer- 
tain satisfaction  that  he  had  not  said  a  word  of  con- 


I90  BIRTHRIGHT 

demnation  the  night  of  Cissie's  confession.  He  would 
make  a  point  of  that,  and  was  prepared  to  argue  that, 
since  he  had  said  nothing,  he  meant  nothing.  In  fact, 
he  was  prepared  to  throw  away  the  truth  completely 
and  enter  the  conversation  as  an  out-and-out  opportu- 
nist, alleging  whatever  appeared  to  fit  the  occasion,  as 
all  men  talk  to  all  women. 

The  old  Captain  was  just  getting  into  his  chair  as 
Peter  entered.  He  paused  in  the  midst  of  lowering 
himself  by  the  chair-arms  and  got  erect  again.  He 
began  speaking  a  little  uncertainly : 

"Ah — by  the  way,  Peter — I  sent  for  you — " 

"Yes,  sir."     Peter  looked  out  at  the  window. 

The  old  gentleman  scrutinized  Peter  a  moment ;  then 
his  faded  eyes  wandered  about  the  library. 

"Still  working  at  the  books,  cross-indexing  them — " 

"Yes,  sir."  Peter  could  divine  by  the  crinkle  of  his 
nerves  the  very  loci  of  the  girl  as  she  passed  down  the 
thoroughfare. 

"Very  good,"  said  the  old  lawyer,  absently.  He  was 
obviously  preoccupied  with  some  other  topic.  "Very 
good,"  he  repeated  with  racking  deliberation;  "quite 
good.     How  did  that  globe  get  bent?" 

Peter,  looking  at  it,  did  not  remember  either  knock- 
ing it  over  or  setting  it  up. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said  rapidly.  "I  had  n't  noticed 
it." 

"Old  Rose  did  it,"  meditated  the  Captain  aloud, 


BIRTHRIGHT  191 

**but  it  *s  no  use  to  accuse  her  of  it;  she'd  deny  it. 
And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  Peter,  she  '11  be  nervous 
until  I  do  accuse  her  of  it.  She'll  be  dropping  things, 
breaking  up  my  china.  I  dare  say  I  'd  best  accuse  her 
at  once,  storm  at  her  some  to  quiet  her  nerves,  and  get 
it  over." 

This  monologue  spurred  Peter's  impatience  into  an 
agony. 

"I  believe  you  were  wanting  me.  Captain?"  he  sug- 
gested, with  a  certain  urge  for  action. 

The  Captain's  little  pleasantry  faded.  He  looked  at 
Peter  and  became  uncomfortable  again. 

"Well,  yes,  Peter.  Downtown  I  heard — well,  a  ru- 
mor connected  with  you — " 

Such  an  extraordinary  turn  caught  the  attention  of 
even  the  fidgety  Peter.  He  looked  at  his  employer 
and  wondered  blankly  what  he  had  heard. 

''I  don't  want  to  intrude  on  your  private  affairs, 
Peter,  not  at  all — not — not  in  the  least — " 

"No-0-0,"  agreed  Peter,  completely  at  a  loss. 

The  old  gentleman  rubbed  his  thin  hands  together, 
lifted  his  eyebrows  up  and  down  nervously.  "Are — 
are  you  about  to — to  leave  me,  Peter?" 

Peter  was  greatly  surprised  at  the  slightness  and 
simplicity  of  this  question  and  at  the  evidence  of  emo- 
tion it  carried. 

"Why,  no,"  he  cried;  "not  at  all!  Who  told  you  I 
was  ?     It  is  a  deep  gratification  to  me — " 


192  BIRTHRIGHT 

"To  be  exact,"  proceeded  the  old  man,  with  a  vague 
fear  still  in  his  eyes,  "I  heard  you  were  going  to 
marry." 

"Marry!"  This  flaw  took  Peter's  sails  even  more 
imexpectedly  than  the  other.  ^'Captain,  who  in  the 
world — who  could  have  told — " 

"Are  you?" 

*^No." 

"You  are  n't?" 

"Indeed,  no!" 

"I  heard  you  were  going  to  marry  a  negress  here  in 
town  called  Cissie  Dildine."  A  question  was  audible 
in  the  silence  that  followed  this  statement.  The  ob- 
scure emotion  that  charged  all  the  old  man's  queries 
affected  Peter. 

"I  am  not.  Captain,"  he  declared  earnestly ;  "that 's 
settled." 

"Oh — you  say  it 's  settled,"  picked  up  the  old  lawyer, 
delicately. 

"Yes." 

"Then  you  had  thought  of  it?"  Immediately,  how- 
ever, he  corrected  this  breach  of  courtesy  into  which 
his  old  legal  habit  of  cross-questioning  had  led  him. 
"Well,  at  any  rate,"  he  said  in  quite  another  voice, 
"that  eases  my  mind,  Peter.  It  eases  my  mind.  It 
was  not  only,  Peter,  the  thought  of  losing  you,  but 
this  girl  you  were  thinking  of  marrying — let  me  warn 
you,  Peter — she  *s  sl  negress." 

The  mulatto  stared  at  the  strange  objection. 

"A  negress!" 


BIRTHRIGHT  193 

The  old  man  paused  and  made  that  queer  movement 
with  his  wrinkled  lips  as  if  he  tasted  some  salty  flavor. 

"I — I  don't  mean  exactly  a — a  negress,"  stammered 
the  old  gentleman ;  ^'1  mean  she  's  not  a — a  good  girl, 
Peter;  she's  a — a  thief,  in  fact — she's  a  thief — a 
thief,  Peter.  I  could  n't  endure  for  you  to  marry  a 
thief,  Peter." 

It  seemed  to  Peter  Siner  that  some  horrible  compul- 
sion kept  the  old  Captain  repeating  over  and  over  the 
fact  that  Cissie  Dildine  was  a  thief,  a  thief,  a  thief. 
The  word  cut  the  very  viscera  in  the  brown  man.  At 
last,  when  it  seemed  the  old  gentleman  would  never 
cease,  Peter  lifted  a  hand. 

''Yes,  yes,"  he  gasped,  with  a  sickly  face,  *T — I  Ve 
heard  that  before." 

He  drew  a  shaken  breath  and  moistened  his  lips. 
The  two  stood  looking  at  each  other,  each  profoundly 
at  a  loss  as  to  what  the  other  meant.  Old  Captain 
Renfrew  collected  himself  first. 

'That  is  all,  Peter."  He  tried  to  lighten  his  tones. 
"I  think  I  '11  get  to  work.  Let  me  see,  where  do  I 
keep  my  manuscript?" 

Peter  pointed  mechanically  at  a  drawer  as  he  walked 
out  at  the  library  door.  Once  outside,  he  ran  to  the 
front  piazza,  then  to  the  front  gate,  and  with  a  racing 
heart  stood  looking  up  and  down  the  sleepy  thorough- 
fare.    The  street  was  quite  empty. 


CHAPTER  XI 

OLD  Captain  Renfrew  was  a  trustful,  credulous 
soul,  as,  indeed,  most  gentleman  who  lead  a 
bachelor's  life  are.  Such  men  lack  that  moral  harden- 
ing and  whetting  which  is  obtained  only  amid  the  vicis- 
situdes of  a  home;  they  are  not  actively  and  continu- 
ously engaged  in  the  employment  and  detection  of 
chicane;  want  of  intimate  association  with  a  woman 
and  some  children  begets  in  them  a  soft  and  simple  way 
of  believing  what  is  said  to  them.  And  their  faith, 
easily  raised,  is  just  as  easily  shattered.  Their  judg- 
ment lacks  training. 

Peter  Siner's  simple  assertion  to  the  old  Captain  that 
he  was  not  going  to  marry  Cissie  Dildine  completely 
allayed  the  old  gentleman's  uneasiness.  Even  the 
further  information  that  Peter  had  had  such  a  mar- 
riage under  advisement,  but  had  rejected  it,  did  not 
put  him  on  his  guard. 

From  long  non-intimacy  with  any  human  creature, 
the  old  legislator  had  forgotten  that  human  life  is  one 
long  succession  of  doing  the  things  one  is  not  going  to 
do;  he  had  forgotten,  if  he  ever  knew,  that  the  human 
brain  is  primarily  not  a  master,  but  a  servant ;  its  func- 
tion is  not  to  direct,  but  to  devise  schemes  and  apologies 

194 


BIRTHRIGHT  195 

to  gratify  impulses.  It  is  the  ways  and  means  com- 
mittee to  the  great  legislature  of  the  body. 

For  several  days  after  his  fear  that  Peter  Siner 
would  marry  Cissie  Dildine  old  Captain  Renfrew  was 
as  felicitous  as  a  lover  newly  reconciled  to  his  mistress. 
He  ambled  between  the  manor  and  the  livery-stable 
with  an  abiding  sense  of  well-being.  When  he  ap- 
proached his  home  in  the  radiance  of  high  noon  and 
saw  the  roof  of  the  old  mansion  lying  a  bluish  gray 
in  the  shadows  of  the  trees,  it  filled  his  heart  with  joy 
to  feel  that  it  was  not  an  old  and  empty  house  that 
awaited  his  coming,  but  that  in  it  worked  a  busy  youth 
who  would  be  glad  to  see  him  enter  the  gate. 

The  fear  of  some  unattended  and  undignified  death 
which  had  beset  the  old  gentleman  during  the  last  eight 
or  ten  years  of  his  life  vanished  under  Peter's  pres- 
ence. When  he  thought  of  it  at  all  now,  he  always 
previsioned  himself  being  lifted  in  Peter's  athletic 
arms  and  laid  properly  on  his  big  four-poster. 

At  times,  when  Peter  sat  working  over  the  books  in 
the  library,  the  Captain  felt  a  prodigious  urge  to  lay  a 
hand  on  the  young  man's  broad  and  capable  shoulder. 
But  he  never  did.  Again,  the  old  lawyer  would  sit  for 
minutes  at  a  time  watching  his  secretary's  regular 
features  as  the  brown  man  pursued  his  work  with  a 
trained  intentness.  The  old  gentleman  derived  a  deep 
pleasure  from  such  long  scrutinies.  It  pleased  him  to 
imagine  that,  when  Tie  was  young,  he  had  possessed  the 
same  vigor,  the  same  masculinity,  the  same  capacity  for 


196  BIRTHRIGHT 

persistent  labor.  Indeed,  all  old  gentlemen  are  prone 
to  choose  the  most  personable  and  virile  young  man 
they  can  find  for  themselves  to  have  been  like. 

The  two  men  had  little  to  say  to  each  other.  Their 
thoughts  beat  to  such  different  tempos  that  any  attempt 
at  continued  speech  discovered  unequal  measures.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  in  all  comfortable  human  conversation, 
words  are  used  as  mere  buoys  dropped  here  and  there 
to  mark  well-known  channels  of  thought  and  feeling. 
Similarity  of  mental  topography  is  necessary  to  mutual 
understanding.  Between  any  two  generations  the  land- 
scape is  so  changed  as  to  be  unrecognizable.  Our 
fathers  are  monarchists ;  our  sons,  bolsheviki. 

Old  Rose  Hobbett  was  more  of  an  age  with  the 
Captain,  and  these  two  talked  very  comfortably  as  the 
old  virago  came  and  went  with  food  at  meal-time.  For 
instance,  the  Captain  always  asked  his  servant  if  she 
had  fed  his  cat,  and  old  Rose  invariably  would  sulk 
and  poke  out  her  lips  and  put  off  answering  to  the 
last  possible  moment  of  insolence,  then  would  grumble 
out  that  she  was  jes  'bout  to  feed  the  varmint,  an'  't 
wuz  funny  nobody  could  n't  give  a  hard-wuckin' 
colored  woman  breathin'-space  to  turn  roun'  in. 

This  reply  was  satisfactory  to  the  Captain,  because 
he  knew  what  it  meant, — that  Rose  had  half  forgotten 
the  cat,  and  had  meant  wholly  to  forget  it,  but  since  she 
had  been  snapped  up,  so  to  speak,  in  the  very  act  of 
forgetting,  she  would  dole  it  out  a  piece  or  two  of  the 


BIRTHRIGHT  197 

meat  that  she  had  meant  to  abscond  with  as  soon  as 
the  dishes  were  done. 

While  Rose  was  fulminating,  the  old  gentleman  re- 
called his  bent  globe  and  decided  the  moment  had  come 
for  a  lecture  on  that  point.  It  always  vaguely  embar- 
rassed the  Captain  to  correct  Rose,  and  this  increased 
his  dignity.  Now  he  cleared  his  throat  in  a  certain  way 
that  brought  the  old  negress  to  attention,  so  well  they 
knew  each  other. 

'*By  the  way,  Rose,  in  the  future  I  must  request  you 
to  use  extraordinary  precautions  in  cleansing  and  dust- 
ing articles  of  my  household  furniture,  or,  in  case  of 
damage,  I  shall  be  forced  to  withold  an  indemnification 
out  of  your  pay." 

Eight  or  ten  years  ago,  when  the  Captain  first  re- 
peated this  formula  to  his  servant,  the  roll  and  swing 
of  his  rhetoric,  and  the  last  word,  *'pay,"  had  built  up 
lively  hopes  in  Rose  that  the  old  gentleman  was  an- 
nouncing an  increase  in  her  regular  wage  of  a  dollar  a 
week.  Experience,  however,  had  long  since  corrected 
this  faulty  interpretation. 

She  came  to  a  stand  in  the  doorway,  with  her  kinky 
gray  head  swung  around,  half  puzzled,  wholly  rebel- 
lious. 

"Whutislbruknow?" 

''My  globe." 

The  old  woman  turned  about  with  more  than  usual 
angry  innocence. 


198  BIRTHRIGHT 

r        "Wny,  I  ain't  tech  yo'  globe !" 

/        "I  foresaw  that,"  agreed  the  Captain,  with  patient 
,f     irony,  "but  in  the  future  don't  touch  it  more  carefully. 
You  bent  its  pivot  the  last  time  you  refrained  from 
handling  it." 

*'But  I  tell  you  I  ain't  tech  yo'  globe!"  cried  the 
negress,  with  the  anger  of  an  illiterate  person  who  feels, 
but  cannot  understand,  the  satire  leveled  at  her. 

"I  agree  with  you,"  said  the  Captain,  glad  the  affair 
was  over. 

This  verbal  ducking  into  the  cellar  out  of  the  path  of 
her  storm  stirred  up  a  tempest. 

''But  I  tell  you  I  ain't  bruk  it!" 

"That 's  what  I  said." 

"Yeah,  yeah,  yeah,"  she  flared;  "you  says  I  ain't,  but 
when  you  says  I  ain't,  you  means  I  is,  an'  when  you 
says  I  is,  you  means  I  ain't.  Dat  's  de  sort  o'  flapjack 
I 's  wuckin'  fur !" 

The  woman  flirted  out  of  the  dining-room,  and  the 
old  gentleman  drew  another  long  breath,  glad  it  was 
over.  He  really  had  little  reason  to  quarrel  about  the 
globe,  bent  or  unbent ;  he  never  used  it.  It  sat  in  his 
study  year  in  and  year  out,  its  dusty  twinkle  brightened 
at  long  intervals  by  old  Rose's  spiteful  rag. 

The  Captain  ate  on  placidly.  There  had  been  a  time 
when  he  was  dubious  about  such  scenes  with  Rose. 
Once  he  felt  it  beneath  his  dignity  as  a  Southern  gentle- 
man to  allow  any  negro  to  speak  to  him  disrespectfully. 
He  used  to  feel  that  he  should  discharge  her  instantly. 


BIRTHRIGHT  199 

and  during  the  first  years  of  their  entente  had  done 
so  a  number  of  times.  But  he  could  get  no  one  else 
who  suited  him  so  well;  her  biscuits,  her  corn-light- 
bread,  her  lye-hominy,  which  only  the  old  darkies  know 
how  to  make.  And,  to  tell  the  truth,  he  missed  the  old 
creature  herself,  her  understanding  of  him  and  his 
ideas,  her  contemporaneity ;  and  no  one  else  would  work 
for  a  dollar  a  week. 

Presently  in  the  course  of  his  eating  the  old  gentle- 
man required  another  biscuit,  and  he  wanted  a  hot  one. 
Three  mildly  heated  disks  lay  on  a  plate  before  him,  but 
they  had  been  out  of  the  oven  for  five  minutes  and  had 
been  reduced  to  an  unappetizing  tepidity. 

A  little  hand-bell  sat  beside  the  Captain's  plate  whose 
special  use  was  to  summon  hot  biscuits.  Now,  the  old 
lawyer  looked  at  its  wo'rn  handle  speculatively.  He 
was  not  at  all  sure  Rose  would  answer  the  bell.  She 
would  say  she  hadn't  heard  it.  He  felt  faintly  dis- 
gruntled at  not  foreseeing  this  exigency  and  buttering 
two  biscuits  while  they  were  hot,  or  even  three. 

He  considered  momentarily  a  project  of  going  after 
a  hot  biscuit  for  himself,  but  eventually  put  it  by. 
South  of  the  Mason-Dixon  Line,  self-help  is  half- 
scandal.  At  last,  quite  dubiously,  he  did  pick  up  the 
bell  and  gave  it  a  gentle  ring,  so  if  old  Rose  chose  not 
to  hear  it,  she  probably  would  n't ;  thus  he  could  believe 
her  and  not  lose  his  temper  and  so  widen  an  already 
uncomfortable  breach. 

To  the  Captain's  surprise,  the  old  creature  not  only 


200  BIRTHRIGHT 

brought  the  biscuits,  but  she  did  it  promptly.  No 
sooner  had  she  served  them,  however,  than  the  Captain 
saw  she  really  had  returned  with  a  new  line  of  defense. 

She  mumbled  it  out  as  usual,  so  that  her  employer 
was  forced  to  guess  at  a  number  of  words:  "Dat 
nigger,  Peter,  mus'  'a'  busted  yo'  gl — " 

"No,  he  did  n't." 

"Mus'  uv." 

"No,  he  did  n't.  I  asked  him,  and  he  said  he 
did  n't." 

The  old  harridan  stared,  and  her  speech  suddenly  be- 
came clear-cut : 

"Well,  'fo'  Gawd,  I  says  I  didn't,  too!" 

At  this  point  the  Captain  made  an  unintelligible 
sound  and  spread  the  butter  on  his  hot  biscuit. 

"He  *s  jes  a  nigger,  lak  I  is,"  stated  the  cook, warmly. 

The  Captain  buttered  a  second  hot  biscuit. 

"We  's  jes  two  niggers." 

The  Captain  hoped  she  would  presently  sputter  her- 
self out. 

"Now  look  heah,'*  cried  the  crone,  growing  angrier 
and  angrier  as  the  reaches  of  the  insult  spread  itself 
before  her,  "is  you  gwine  to  put  one  o'  us  niggers  befo' 
de  udder?  'Ca'se  ef  you  is,  I  mus'  say,  it's  Kady- 
lock-a-do'  wid  me." 

The  Captain  looked  up  satirically. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  Katie-lock-the-door  with 
you  ?"  he  asked,  though  he  had  an  uneasy  feeling  that 
he  knew. 


BIRTHRIGHT  201 

"You  know  whut  I  means.  I  means  I 's  gwine  to 
leab  dis  place/* 

"Now  look  here,  Rose,"  protested  the  lawyer,  with 
dignity,  "Peter  Siner  occupies  almost  a  fiduciary  re- 
lation to  me." 

The  old  negress  stared  with  a  slack  jaw.  "A  rela- 
tion o'  yo's !" 

The  lawyer  hesitated  some  seconds,  looking  at  the 
hag.  His  high-bred  old  face  was  quite  inscrutable,  but 
presently  he  said  in  a  serious  voice : 

"Peter  occupies  a  position  of  trust  with  me.  Rose." 

"Yeah,"  mumbled  Rose;  "I  see  you  trus'  him." 

"One  day  he  is  going  to  do  4ne  a  service,  a  very 
great  service.  Rose." 

The  hag  continued  looking  at  him  with  a  stubborn 
expression. 

"You  know  better  than  any  one  else.  Rose,  my  dread 
of  some — some  unmannerly  death — " 

The  old  woman  made  a  sound  that  might  have  meant 
anything. 

"And  Peter  has  promised  to  stay  with  me  until — 
until  the  end." 

The  old  negress  considered  this  solemn  speech,  and 
then  grunted  out : 

"Which  en'?" 

"Which  end?"     The  Captain  was  irritated. 

"Yeah;  yo'  en'  or  Peter's  en'?" 

"By  every  law  of  probability,  Peter  will  outlive  me." 

"Yeah,  but  Peter  '11  come  to  a  en'  wid  you  when  he 


202  BIRTHRIGHT 

ma'ies  dat  stuck-up  yellow  fly-by-night,  Cissie  Dildine." 

"He  's  npt  going  to  marry  her,"  said  the  Captain, 
comfortably. 

"Huh!" 

"Peter  told  me  he  did  n't  intend  to  marry  Cissie  Dil- 
dine." 

"Shu !  Then  whut  fur  dey  go  roun'  peepin'  at  each 
other  lak  a  couple  o'  niggers  roun'  a  haystack?" 

The  old  lawyer  was  annoyed. 

"Peeping  where  ?" 

"Why,  right  in  front  o'  dis  house,  dat 's  wha ;  ever' 
day  when  dat  hussy  passeis  up  to  de  Arkwrights',  wha 
she  wucks.  She  pokes  along  an'  walls  her  eyes  roun' 
at  dis  house  lak  a  calf  wid  de  splivins." 

"That  going  on  now  ?" 

"Ever'  day." 

A  deep  uneasiness  went  through  the  old  man.  He 
moistened  his  lips. 

"But  Peter  said—" 

"Good  Gawd!  Mars'  Renfrew,  whut  diff'ence  do  it 
make  whut  Peter  say?  Ain't  you  foun'  out  yit  when 
a  he-nigger  an'  a  she-nigger  gits  to  peepin'  at  each 
'udder,  whut  dey  says  don't  lib  in  de  same  neighbo'hood 
wid  whut  dey  does  ?" 

This  was  delivered  with  such  energy  that  it  com- 
pletely undermined  the  Captain's  faith  in  Peter,  and  the 
fact  angered  the  old  gentleman. 

"That'll  do,  Rose;  that'll  do.  That's  all  I  need 
of  you." 


BIRTHRIGHT  203 

The  old  crone  puffed  up  again  at  this  unexpected 
flare,  and  went  out  of  the  room,  plopping  her  feet  on 
the  floor  and  mumbling.  Among  these  ungracious 
sounds  the  Captain  caught,  "Blin'  ole  fool!"  But 
there  was  no  need  becoming  offended  and  demanding 
what  she  meant.  Her  explanation  would  have  been 
vague  and  unsatisfactory. 

The  verjuice  which  old  Rose  had  sprinkled  over 
Peter  and  Cissie  by  calling  them  "he-nigger"  and  "she- 
nigger"  somehow  minimized  them,  animalized  them  in 
the  old  lawyer's  imagination.  Rose's  speech  was 
charged  with  such  contempt  for  her  own  color  that  it 
placed  the  mulatto  and  the  octoroon  down  with  apes 
and  rabbits. 

The  lawyer  fought  against  his  feeling,  for  the  sake 
of  his  secretary,  who  had  come  to  occupy  so  wide  a 
sector  of  his  comfort  and  affection.  Yet  the  old  virago 
evidently  spoke  fro'm  a  broad  background  of  experience. 
She  was  at  least  half  convincing.  While  the  Captain 
repelled  her  charge  against  his  quiet,  hard-working 
brown  helper,  he  admitted  it  against  Cissie  Dildine, 
whom  he  did  not  know.  She  was  an  animal,  a  female 
centaur,  a  wanton  and  a  strumpet,  as  all  negresses  are 
wantons  and  strumpets.  All  white  men  in  the  South 
firmly  believe  that.  They  believe  it  with  a  peculiar 
detestation ;  and  since  they  used  these  persons  very 
profitably  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  as  breeding 
animals,  one  might  say  they  believe  it  a  trifle  ungrate- 
fully. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  semi-daily  passings  of  Cissie  Dildine  before 
the  old  Renfrew  manor  on  her  way  to  and  from 
the  Arkwright  home  upset  Peter  Siner's  working 
schedule  to  an  extraordinary  degree. 

After  watching  for  two  or  three  days,  Peter  worked 
out  a  sort  of  time-table  for  Cissie.  She  passed  up 
early  in  the  morning,  at  about  five  forty-five.  He 
could  barely  see  her  then,  and  somehow  she  looked 
very  pathetic  hurrying  along  in  the  cold,  dim  light  of 
dawn.  After  she  had  cooked  the  Arkwright  breakfast, 
swept  the  Arkwright  floors,  dusted  the  Arkwright 
furniture,  she  passed  back  toward  'Niggertown,  some- 
where near  nine.  About  eleven  o'clock  she  went  up  to 
cook  dinner,  and  returned  at  one  or  two  in  the  after- 
noon. Occasionally,  she  made  a  third  trip  to  get  su;^ 
per. 

This  was  as  exactly  as  Peter  could  predict  the  ar- 
rivals and  departures  of  Cissie,  and  the  schedule  in- 
volved a  large  margin  of  uncertainty.  For  half  an 
hour  before  Cissie  passed  she  kept  Peter  watching  the 
clock  at  nervous  intervals,  wondering  if,  after  all,  she 
had  gone  by  unobserved.  Invariably,  he  would  move 
his  work  to  a  window  where  he  had  the  whole  street 
under  his  observation.     Then  he  would  proceed  with 

204 


BIRTHRIGHT  205 

his  indexing  with  more  and  more  difficulty.  At  first 
the  paragraphs  would  lose  connection,  and  he  would  be 
forced  to  reread  them.  Then  the  sentences  would  drop 
apart.  Immediately  before  the  girl  arrived,  the  words 
themselves  grew  anarchic.  They  stared  him  in  the 
eye,  each  a  complete  entity,  self-sufficient,  individual, 
bearing  no  relation  to  any  other  words  except  that  of 
mere  proximity, — like  a  spelling  lesson.  Only  by  an 
effort  could  Peter  enforce  a  temporary  cohesion  among 
them,  and  they  dropped  apart  at  the  first  slackening  of 
the  strain. 

Strange  to  say,  when  the  octoroon  actually  was  walk- 
ing past,  Peter  did  not  look  at  her  steadily.  On  the 
contrary,  he  would  think  to  himself:  *'How  little  I 
care  for  such  a  woman!  My  ideal  is  thus  and  so — " 
He  would  look  at  her  until  she  glanced  across  the  yard 
and  saw  him  sitting  in  the  window;  then  immediately 
he  bent  over  his  books,  as  if  his  stray  glance  had  lighted 
on  her  purely  by  chance,  as  if  she  were  nothing  more 
to  him  than  a  passing  dray  or  a  fluttering  leaf.  In- 
deed, he  told  himself  during  these  crises  that  he  had 
no  earthly  interest  in  the  girl,  that  she  was  not  the 
sort  of  woman  he  desired, — while  his  heart  hammered, 
and  the  lines  of  print  under  his  eyes  blurred  into  gray 
streaks  across  the  page. 

One  afternoon  Peter  saw  Cissie  pass  his  gate,  hurry- 
ing, almost  running,  apparently  in  flight  from  some- 
thing. It  sent  a  queer  shock  through  him.  He  stared 
after  her,  then  up  and  down  the  street.     He  wondered 


2o6  BIRTHRIGHT 

why  she  ran.  Even  when  he  went  to  bed  that  night, 
the  strangeness  of  Cissie's  flight  kept  him  awake,  in- 
venting explanations. 

None  of  Peter's  preoccupations  was  lost  upon  Cap- 
tain Renfrew.  None  is  so  suspicious  as  a  credulous 
man  aroused.  After  Rose  had  struck  her  blow  at  the 
secretary,  the  old  gentleman  noted  all  of  Peter's  per- 
mutations and  misconstrued  a  dozen  quite  innocent 
actions  on  Peter's  part  into  signs  of  bad  faith. 

By  a  little  observation  he  identified  Cissie  Dildine, 
and  what  he  saw  did  not  reestablish  his  peace  of  mind. 
On  the  contrary,  it  became  more  than  probable  that 
the  cream-colored  negress  would  lure  Peter  away. 
This  possibility  aroused  in  the  old  lawyer  a  grim, 
voiceless  rancor  against  Cissie.  In  his  thoughts  he 
linked  the  girl  with  every  manner  of  evil  design  against 
Peter.  She  was  an  adventuress,  a  Cyprian,  a  seduc- 
tress attempting  to  snare  Peter  in  the  brazen  web  of  her 
comeliness.  For  to  the  old  gentleman's  eyes  there  was 
an  abiding  impudicity  about  Cissie's  very  charms. 
The  passionate  repose  of  her  face  was  immodest;  the 
possession  of  a  torso  such  as  a  sculptor  might  have 
carved  was  brazen.  The  girl  was  shamefully  well  ap- 
pointed. 

One  morning  as  Captain  Renfrew  came  home  from 
town,  he  chanced  to  walk  just  behind  the  octoroon,  and 
quite  unconsciously  the  girl  delivered  an  added  fillip  to^ 
the  old  gentleman's  uneasiness. 


BIRTHRIGHT  207 

Just  before  Cissie  passed  in  front  of  the  Renfrew- 
manor,  womanlike,  she  paused  to  make  some  slight  im- 
provements in  her  appearance  before  walking  under  the 
eyes  of  her  lover.  She  adjusted  some  strands  of  hair 
which  had  blown  loose  in  the  autumn  wind,  looked  at 
herself  in  a  purse  mirror,  retouched  her  nose  with  her 
greenish  powder;  then  she  picked  a  little  sprig  of  sumac 
leaves  that  burned  in  the  corner  of  a  lawn  and  pinned 
its  flame  on  the  unashamed  loveliness  of  her  bosom. 

This  negro  instinct  for  brilliant  color  is  the  theme 
of  many  jests  in  the  South,  but  it  is  entirely  justified 
esthetically,  although  the  constant  sarcasm  of  the  whites 
has  checked  its  satisfaction,  if  it  has  not  corrupted  the 
taste. 

The  bit  of  sumac  out  of  which  the  octoroon  had  im- 
provised a  nosegay  lighted  up  her  skin  and  eyes,  and 
created  an  ensemble  as  closely  resembling  a  Henri 
painting  as  anything  the  streets  of  Hooker's  Bend  were 
destined  to  see. 

But  old  Captain  Renfrew  was  far  from  appreciating 
any  such  bravura  in  scarlet  and  gold.  At  first  he  put 
it  down  to  mere  niggerish  taste,  and  his  dislike  for  the 
girl  edged  his  stricture;  then,  on  second  thought,  the 
oddness  of  sumac  for  a  nosegay  caught  his  attention. 
Nobody  used  sumac  for  a  buttonhole.  He  had  never 
heard  of  any  woman,  white  or  black,  using  sumac  for 
a  bouquet.  Why  should  this  Cissie  Dildine  trig  her- 
self out  in  sumac? 

The  Captain's  suspicions  came  to  a  point  like  a 


;o9 


BIRTHRIGHT 


setter.  He  began  sniffing  about  for  Cissie's  motives 
in  choosing  so  queer  an  ornament.  He  wondered  if 
it  had  anything  to  do  with  Peter  Siner. 

All  his  life,  Captain  Renfrew's  brain  had  been  de- 
liberate. He  moved  mentally,  as  he  did  physically, 
with  dignity.  To  tell  the  truth,  the  Captain's  thoughts 
had  a  way  of  absolutely  stopping  now  and  then,  and 
for  a  space  he  would  view  the  world  as  a  simple  collec- 
tion of  colored  surfaces  without  depth  or  meaning. 
During  these  intervals,  by  a  sort  of  irony  of  the  gods, 
the  old  gentleman's  face  wore  a  look  of  philosophic 
concentration,  so  that  his  mental  hiatuses  had  given 
him  a  reputation  for  profundity,  which  was  county 
wide.  It  had  been  this,  years  before,  that  had  carried 
him  by  a  powerful  majority  into  the  Tennessee  legis- 
lature. The  voters  agreed,  almost  to  a  man,  that  they 
preferred  depth  to  a  shallow  facility.  The  rival  candi- 
date had  been  shallow  and  facile.  The  polls  returned 
the  Captain,  and  the  young  gentleman — for  the  Captain 
was  a  young  gentleman  in  those  days — was  launched 
on  a  typical  politician's  career.  But  some  Republican 
member  from  east  Tennessee  had  impugned  the  rising 
statesman's  honor  with  some  sort  of  improper  liaison. 
In  those  days  there  seemed  to  be  proper  and  improper 
liaisons.  There  had  been  a  duel  on  the  banks  of  the 
Cumberland  River  in  which  the  Captain  succeeded  in 
wounding  his  traducer  in  the  arm,  and  was  thus  vindi- 
cated by  the  gods.     But  the  incident  ended  a  career  that 


BIRTHRIGHT  209 

might  very  well  have  wound  up  in  the  governor's  chair, 
or  even  in  the  United  States  Senate,  considering  how 
very  deliberate  the  Captain  was  mentally. 

To-day,  as  the  Captain  walked  up  the  street  follow- 
ing Cissie  Dildine,  one  of  these  vacant  moods  fell  upon 
him,  and  it  was  not  until  they  had  reached  his  own  gate 
that  it  suddenly  occurred  to  the  old  gentleman  just 
what  Cissie's  sumac  did  mean.  It  was  a  signal  to 
Peter.  The  simplicity  of  the  solution  stirred  the  old 
man.  Its  meaning  was  equally  easy  to  fathom. 
When  a  woman  signals  any  man  it  conveys  consent. 
Denials  receive  no  signals ;  they  are  inferred.  In  this 
particular  case  Captain  Renfrew  found  every  reason 
to  believe  that  this  flaring  bit  of  sumac  was  the  prelude 
to  an  elopement. 

In  the  window  of  his  library  the  Captain  saw  his 
secretary  staring  at  his  cards  and  books  with  an  intent- 
ness  plainly  assumed.  Peter's  fixed  stare  had  none  of 
those  small  movements  of  the  head  that  mark  genuine 
intellectual  labor.  So  Peter  was  posing,  pretending  he 
did  not  see  the  girl,  to  disarm  his  employer's  suspicions, 
— pretending  not  to  see  a  girl  rigged  out  like  that ! 

Such  duplicity  sent  a  queer  spasm  of  anguish  through 
the  old  lawyer.  Peter's  action  held  half  a  dozen  barbs 
for  the  Captain.  A  fellow-alumnus  of  Harvard  stay- 
ing in  his  house  merely  for  his  wage  and  keep !  Peter 
bore  not  the  slightest  affection  for  him;  the  mulatto 
lacked  even  the  chivalry  to  notify  the  Captain  of  his  in- 


2IO  BIRTHRIGHT 

tentions,  because  he  knew  the  Captain  objected.  And 
yet  all  these  self -centered  objections  were  nothing  to 
what  old  Captain  Renfrew  felt  for  Peter's  own  sake. 
For  Peter  to  marry  a  nigger  and  a  strumpet,  for  him 
to  elope  with  a  wanton  and  a  thief !  For  such  an  up- 
standing lad,  the  very  picture  of  his  own  virility  and 
mental  alertness  when  he  was  of  that  age,  for  such  a 
boy  to  fling  himself  away,  to  drop  out  of  existence^ — 
oh,  it  was  loathly ! 

The  old  man  entered  the  library  feeling  sick.  It  was 
empty.  Peter  had  gone  to  his  room,  according  to  his 
custom.  But  in  this  particular  instance  it  seemed  to 
Captain  Renfrew  his  withdrawal  was  flavored  with  a 
tang  of  guilt.  If  he  were  innocent,  why  should  not 
such  a  big,  strong  youth  have  stayed  and  helped  an  old 
gentleman  off  with  his  overcoat? 

The  old  Captain  blew  out  a  windy  breath  as  he  helped 
himself  out  of  his  coat  in  the  empty  library.  The  bent 
globe  still  leaned  against  the  window-seat.  The  room 
had  never  looked  so  somber  or  so  lonely. 

At  dinner  the  old  man  ate  so  little  that  Rose  Hobbett 
ceased  her  monotonous  grumbling  to  ask  if  he  felt 
well.  He  said  he  had  had  a  hard  day,  a  difficult  day. 
He  felt  so  weak  and  thin  that  he  foretold  the  gray 
days  when  he  could  no  longer  creep  to  the  village  and 
sit  with  his  cronies  at  the  livery-stable,  when  he  would 
be  house-fast,  through  endless  days,  creeping  from 
room  to  room  like  a  weak  old  rat  in  a  huge  empty 
house,  finally  to  die  in  some  disgusting  fashion.    And 


BIRTHRIGHT  211 

now  Peter  was  going  to  leave  him,  was  going  to  throw 
himself  away  on  a  lascivious  wench.  A  faint  moisture 
dampened  the  old  man's  withered  eyes.  He  drank  an 
extra  thimbleful  of  whisky  to  try  to  hearten  himself. 
Its  bouquet  filled  the  time-worn  stateliness  of  the 
dining-room. 

During  the  weeks  of  Peter's  stay  at  the  manor  it  had 
grown  to  be  the  Captain's  habit  really  to  write  for  two 
or  three  hours  in  the  afternoon,  and  his  pile  of  manu- 
script had  thickened  under  his  application. 

The  old  man  was  writing  a  book  called  "Reminis- 
cences of  Peace  and  War."  His  book  would  form 
another  unit  of  that  extraordinary  crop  of  personal 
reminiscences  of  the  old  South  which  flooded  the 
presses  of  America  during  the  decade  of  1908-18. 
During  just  that  decade  it  seemed  as  if  the  aged  men 
and  women  of  the  South  suddenly  realized  that  the 
generation  who  had  lived  through  the  picturesqueness 
and  stateliness  of  the  old  slave  regime  was  almost  gone, 
and  over  their  hearts  swept  a  common  impulse  to  com- 
memorate, in  the  sunset  of  tjieir  own  Hves,  its  fading 
splendor  and  its  vanished  deeds. 

On  this  particular  afternoon  the  Captain  settled 
himself  to  work,  but  his  reminiscences  did  not  get  on. 
He  pinched  a  bit  of  floss  from  the  nib  of  his  pen  and 
tried  to  swing  into  the  period  of  which  he  was  writing. 
He  read  over  a  few  pages  of  his  copy  as  mental  prim- 
ing, but  his  thoughts  remained  flat  and  dull.     Indeed, 


213  BIRTHRIGHT 

his  whole  Hfe,  as  he  reviewed  it  in  the  waning  after- 
noon, appeared  empty  and  futile.  It  seemed  hardly 
worth  while  to  go  on. 

The  Captain  had  come  to  that  point  in  his  memoirs 
where  the  Republican  representative  from  Knox 
County  had  set  going  the  petard  which  had  wrecked 
his  political  career. 

From  the  very  beginnings  of  his  labors  the  old  law- 
yer had  looked  forward  to  writing  just  this  period 
of  his  life.  He  meant  to  clear  up  his  name  once  for 
all.  He  meant  to  use  invective,  argument,  testimony, 
and  a  powerful  emotional  appeal,  such  as  a  country 
lawyer  invariably  attempts  with  a  jury. 

But  now  that  he  had  arrived  at  the  actual  com- 
position of  his  defense,  he  sat  biting  his  penholder, 
with  all  the  arguments  he  meant  to  advance  slipped 
from  his  mind.  He  could  not  recall  the  points  of  the 
proof.  He  could  not  recall  them  with  Peter  Siner 
moving  restlessly  about  the  room,  glancing  through 
the  window,  unsettled,  nervous,  on  the  verge  of  eloping 
with  a  negress. 

His  secretary's  tragedy  smote  the  old  man.  The 
necessity  of  doing  something  for  Peter  put  his  thoughts 
to  rout.  A  wild  idea  occurred  to  the  Captain  that  if 
he  should  write  the  exact  truth,  perhaps  his  memoirs 
might  serve  Peter  as  a  signal  against  a  futile,  empty 
journey. 

But  the  thought  no  sooner  appeared  than  it  was  re- 
jected.    In  the  Anglo-Saxon,   especially  the  Anglo- 


BIRTHRIGHT  213 

Saxon  of  the  Southern  United  States,  abides  no  such 
Gallic  frankness  as  moved  a  Jean-Jacques.  Southern 
memoirs  always  sound  like  the  conversation  between 
two  maiden  ladies, — nothing  intimate,  simply  a  few 
general  remarks  designed  to  show  from  what  nice 
families  they  came. 

So  the  Captain  wrote  nothing.  During  all  the  after- 
noon he  sat  at  his  desk  with  a  leaden  heart,  watching 
Peter  move  about  the  room.  The  old  man  maintained 
more  or  less  the  posture  of  writing,  but  his  thoughts 
were  occupied  in  pitying  himself  and  pitying  Peter. 
Half  a  dozen  times  he  looked  up,  on  the  verge  of  mak- 
ing some  plea,  some  remonstrance,  against  the  mad- 
ness of  this  brown  man.  But  the  sight  of  Peter  sit- 
ting in  the  window-seat  staring  out  into  the  street 
silenced  him.  He  was  a  weak  old  man,  and  Peter's 
nerves  were  strung  with  the  desire  of  youth. 

At  last  the  two  men  heard  old  Rose  clashing  in  the 
kitchen.  A  few  minutes  later  the  secretary  excused 
himself  from  the  library,  to  go  to  his  own  room.  As 
Peter  was  about  to  pass  through  the  door,  the  Captain 
was  suddenly  galvanized  into  action  by  the  thought 
that  this  perhaps  was  the  last  time  he  would  ever  see 
him.  He  got  up  from  his  chair  and  called  shakenly 
to  Peter.  The  negro  paused.  The  Captain  moistened 
his  lips  and  controlled  his  voice. 

"I  want  to  have  a  word  with  you,  Peter,  about  a — a 
little  matter.     I — I  've  mentioned  it  before." 

"Yes,  sir."     The  negro's  tone  and  attitude  reminded 


214  BIRTHRIGHT 

the  Captain  that  the  supper  gong  would  soon  sound 
and  they  would  best  separate  at  once. 

*Tt — it 's  about  Cissie  Dildine,"  the  old  lawyer 
hurried  on. 

Peter  nodded  slightly. 

"Yes,  you  mentioned  that  before." 

The  old  man  lifted  a  thin  hand  as  if  to  touch  Peter's 
arm,  but  he  did  not.     A  sort  of  desperation  seized  him, 

"But  listen,  Peter,  you  don't  want  to  do — what 's 
in  your  mind !" 

"What  is  in  my  mind.  Captain?" 

"I  mean  marry  a  negress.  You  don't  want  to  marry 
a  negress!" 

The  brown  man  stared,  utterly  blank. 

"Not  marry  a  negress !" 

"No,  Peter;  no,"  quavered  the  old  man.  "For  your- 
self it  may  make  no  difference,  but  your  children — think 
of  your  children,  your  son  growing  up  under  a  brown 
veil!  You  can't  tear  it  off.  God  himself  can't  tear 
it  off!  You  can  never  reach  him  through  it.  Your 
children,  your  children's  children,  a  terrible  procession 
that  stretches  out  and  out,  marching  under  a  black 
shroud,  unknowing,  unknown!  All  you  can  see  are 
their  sad  forms  beneath  the  shroud,  marching  away — 
marching  away.  God  knows  where !  And  yet — it 's 
your  own  flesh  and  blood !" 

Suddenly  the  old  lawyer's  face  broke  into  the  hard, 
tearless  contortions  of  the  aged.  His  terrible  emotion 
communicated  itself  to  the  sensitive  brown  man. 


BIRTHRIGHT  215 

"But,  Captain,  I  myself  am  a  negro.     Whom  should] 
I  marry?"  I 

"No  one;  no  one!  Let  your  seed  wither  in  your 
loins !  It 's  better  to  do  that ;  it 's  better — "  At  that 
moment  the  clashing  of  the  supper  gong  fell  on  the  old 
man's  naked  nerves.  He  straightened  up  by  some  re- 
flex mechanism,  turned  away  from  what  he  thought 
was  his  last  interview  with  his  secretary,  and  proceeded 
down  the  piazza  into  the  great  empty  dining-room. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

WITH  overwrought  nerves  Peter  Siner  entered 
his  room.  At  five  o'clock  that  afternoon  he 
had  seen  Cissie  Dildine  go  up  the  street  to  the  Ark- 
wright  home  to  cook  one  of  those  occasional  suppers. 
He  had  been  watching  for  her  return,  and  in  the  midst 
of  it  the  Captain's  extraordinary  outburst  had  stirred 
him  up. 

Once  in  his  room,  the  negro  placed  the  broken 
Hepplewhite  in  such  a  position  that  he  could  rake  the 
street  with  a  glance.  Then  he  tried  to  compose  him- 
self and  await  the  coming  of  his  supper  and  the  passage 
of  Cissie.  There  was  something  almost  pathetic  in 
Peter's  endless  watching,  all  for  a  mere  glimpse  or  two 
of  the  girl  in  yellow.  He  himself  had  no  idea  how 
his  nerves  and  thoughts  had  woven  themselves  around 
the  young  woman.  He  had  no  idea  what  a  passion 
this  continual  doling  out  of  glimpses  had  begotten. 
He  did  not  dream  how  much  he  was,  as  folk  naively 
put  it,  in  love  with  her. 

His  love  was  strong  enough  to  make  him  forget  for 
a  while  the  old  lawyer's  outbreak.  However,  as  the 
dusk  thickened  in  the  shrubbery  and  under  the  trees, 
certain  of  the  old  gentleman's  phrases  revisited  the 
mulatto's  mind:     "A  terrible  procession  .  .  .  march- 

216 


BIRTHRIGHT  217 

ing  under  a  black  shroud.  .  .  .  Your  children,  your 
children's  children,  a  terrible  procession,  .  .  .  march- 
ing away,  God  knows  where.  .  .  .  And  yet — it 's  your 
own  flesh  and  blood!"  They  were  terrific  sentences, 
as  if  the  old  man  had  been  trying  to  tear  from  his  vision 
some  sport  of  nature,  some  deformity.  As  the  im- 
plications spread  before  Peter,  he  became  more  and 
more  astonished  at  its  content.  Even  to  Captain  Ren- 
frew black  men  were  dehumanized, — shrouded,  un- 
touchable creatures. 

It  delivered  to  Peter  a  slow  but  a  profound  shock. 
He  glanced  about  at  the  faded  magnificence  of  the 
room  with  a  queer  feeling  that  he  had  been  introduced 
into  it  under  a  sort  of  misrepresentation.  He  had 
taken  up  his  abode  with  the  Captain,  at  least  on  the 
basis  of  belonging  to  the  human  family,  but  this  pas- 
sionate outbreak,  this  puzzling  explosion,  cut  that 
ground  from  under  his  feet. 

The  more  Peter  thought  about  it,  the  stranger  grew 
his  sensation.  Not  even  to  be  classed  as  a  human  being 
by  this  old  gentleman  who  in  a  weak,  helpless  fashion 
had  crept  somewhat  into  Peter's  affections, — not  to  be 
considered  a  man !  The  mulatto  drew  a  long,  troubled 
breath,  and  by  the  mere  mechanics  of  his  desire  kept 
staring  through  the  gloom  for  Cissie. 

Peter  Siner  had  known  all  along  that  the  unread 
whites  of  Hooker's  Bend — and  that  included  nearly 
every  white  person  in  the  village — considered  black 
men  as  simple  animals;  but  he  had  supposed  that  the 


2i8  BIRTHRIGHT 

more  thoughtful  men,  of  whom  Captain  Renfrew  was 
a  type,  at  least  admitted  the  A  fro- American  to  the  com- 
mon brotherhood  of  humanity.     But  they  did  not. 

As  Peter  sat  staring  into  the  darkness  the  whole 
effect  of  the  dehumanizing  of  the  black  folk  of  the 
iSouth  began  to  unfold  itself  before  his  imagination. 
It  explained  to  him  t^he  tragedies  of  his  race,  their 
sufferings  at  the  hand  of  mob  violence;  the  casualness, 
even  the  levity  with  which  black  men  were  murdered ; 
the  chronic  dishonesty  with  which  negroes  were  treated ; 
the  constant  enactment  of  adverse  legislation  against 
them;  the  cynical  use  of  negro  women.  They  were 
all  vermin,  animals ;  they  were  one  with  the  sheep  and 
the  swine ;  a  little  nearer  the  human  in  form,  perhaps, 
and,  oddly  enough,  one  that  could  be  bred  to  a  human 
being,  as  testified  a  multitude  of  brown  and  yellow  and 
cream-colored  folk,  but  all  marching  away,  as  the  Cap- 
tain had  so  passionately  said,  marching  away,  their 
forms  hidden  from  human  intercourse  under  a  shroud 
of  black,  an  endless  procession  marching  away,  God 
knew  whither!  And  yet  they  were  the  South's  own 
flesh  and  blood. 

The  horror  of  such  a  complex  swelled  in  Peter's  mind 
to  monstrous  proportions.  As  night  thickened  at  his 
window,  the  negro  sat  dazed  and  wondering  at  the 
mightiness  of  his  vision.  His  thoughts  went  groping, 
trying  to  solve  some  obscure  problem  it  posed.  He 
thought  of  the  Arkwright  boy;  he  thought  of  the  white 
men  smiling  as  his  mother's  funeral  went  past  the 


BIRTHRIGHT  219 

livery-stable;  he  thought  of  Captain  Renfrew's  manu- 
script that  he  was  transcribing.  Through  all  the  old 
man's  memoirs  ran  a  certain  lack  of  sincerity.  Peter 
always  felt  amid  his  labors  that  the  old  Captain  was 
making  an  attorney's  plea  rather  than  a  candid  ex- 
position. At  this  point  in  his  thoughts  there  gradually 
limned  itself  in  the  brown  man's  mind  the  answer  to 
that  enigma  which  he  almost  had  unraveled  on  the 
day  he  first  saw  Cissie  Dildine  pass  his  window.  With 
it  came  the  answer  to  the  puzzle  contained  in  the  old 
Captain's  library.  The  library  was  not  an  ordinary 
compilation  of  the  world's  thought ;  it,  too,  was  an  at- 
torney's special  pleading  against  the  equality  of  man. 
Any  book  or  theory  that  upheld  the  equality  of  man 
was  carefully  excluded  from  the  shelves.  Darwin's 
great  hypothesis,  and  every  development  springing 
from  it,  had  been  banned,  because  the  moment  that  a 
theory  was  propounded  of  the  great  biologic  relation- 
ship of  all  flesh,  from  worms  to  vertebrates,  there  in- 
stantly followed  a  corollary  of  the  brotherhood  of 
man. 

What  Christ  did  for  theology,  Darwin  did  for  bio- 
logy,— he  democratized  it.  The  One  descended  to 
man's  brotherhood  from  the  Trinity ;  the  other  climbed 
up  to  it  from  the  worms. 

The  old  Captain's  library  lacked  sincerity.  South- 
ern orthodoxy,  which  persists  in  pouring  its  religious 
thought  into  the  outworn  molds  of  special  creation, 
lacks  sincerity.     Scarcely  a  department  of  Southern 


220  BIRTHRIGHT 

life  escapes  this  fundamental  attitude  of  special  pleader 
and  disingenuousness.  It  explains  the  Southern  fond- 
ness for  legal  subtleties.  All  attempts  at  Southern 
poetry,  belles-lettres,  painting,  novels,  bear  the  stamp 
of  the  special  plea,  of  authors  whose  exposition  is 
careful. 

Peter  perceived  what  every  one  must  perceive,  that 
when  letters  turn  into  a  sort  of  glorified  prospectus  of 
a  country,  all  value  as  literature  ceases.  The  very  breath 
of  art  and  interpretation  is  an  eager  and  sincere  search- 
ing of  the  heart.  This  sincerity  the  South  lacks.  Her 
single  talent  will  always  be  forensic,  because  she  is  a 
lawyer  with  a  cause  to  defend.  And  such  is  the  curse 
that  arises  from  lynchings  and  venery  and  extortions 
and  dehumanizings, — sterility;  a  dumbness  of  soul. 

Peter  Siner's  thoughts  lifted  him  with  the  tremen- 
dous buoyancy  of  inspiration.  He  swung  out  of  his 
chair  and  began  tramping  his  dark  room.  The  skin  of 
his  scalp  tickled  as  if  a  ghost  had  risen  before  him. 
The  nerves  in  his  thighs  and  back  vibrated.  He  felt 
light,  and  tingled  with  energy. 

Unaware  of  what  he  was  doing,  he  set  about  lighting 
the  gasolene-lamp.  He  worked  with  nervous  quick- 
ness, as  if  he  were  in  a  great  hurry.  Presently  a  bril- 
liant light  flooded  the  room.  It  turned  the  gray  illum- 
ination of  the  windows  to  blackness. 

Joy  enveloped  Peter.  His  own  future  developed 
under  his  eyes  with  the  same  swift  clairvoyance  that 
marked  his  vision  of  the  ills  of  his  country.     He  saw 


BIRTHRIGHT  221 

himself  remedying  those  ills.  He  would  go  about 
showing  white  men  and  black  men  the  simple  truth, 
the  spiritual  necessity  for  justice  and  fairness.  It  was 
not  a  question  of  social  equality;  it  was  a  question  of 
clearing  a  road  for  the  development  of  Southern  life. 
He  would  show  white  men  that  to  weaken,  to  debase, 
to  dehumanize  the  negro,  inflicted  a  more  terrible 
wound  on  the  South  than  would  any  strength  the  black 
man  might  develop.  He  would  show  black  men  that 
to  hate  the  whites,  constantly  to  suspect,  constantly  to 
pilfer  from  them,  only  riveted  heavier  shackles  on  their 
limbs. 

It  was  all  so  dear  and  so  simple !  The  white  South 
must  humanize  the  black  not  for  the  sake  of  the  negro, 
but  for  the  sake  of  itself.  'No  one  could  resist  logic 
so  fundamental. 

Peter's  heart  sang  with  the  solemn  joy  of  a  man  who 
had  found  his  work.  All  through  his  youth  he  had 
felt  blind  yearnings  and  gropings  for  he  knew  not 
what.  It  had  driven  him  with  endless  travail  out  of 
Niggertown,  through  school  and  college,  and  back  to 
Niggertown, — this  untiring  Hound  of  Heaven.  But 
at  last  he  had  reached  his  work.  He,  Peter  Siner,  a 
mulatto,  with  the  blood  of  both  white  and  black  in  his 
veins,  would  come  as  an  evangel  of  liberty  to  both 
white  and  black.  The  brown  man's  eyes  grew  moist 
from  joy.  His  body  seemed  possessed  of  tremendous 
energy.3 

As  he  paced  his  room  there  came  into  the  glory  of 


222  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter's  thoughts  the  memory  of  the  Arkwright  boy  as 
he  sat  in  the  cedar  glade  brooding  on  the  fallen  needles. 
Peter  recalled  the  hobbledehoy's  disjointed  words  as  he 
wrestled  with  the  moral  and  physical  problems  of 
adolescence.  Peter  recalled  his  impulse  to  sit  down  by 
young  Sam  Arkwright,  and,  as  best  he  might,  give  him 
some  clue  to  the  critical  and  feverish  period  through 
which  he  was  passing. 

He  had  not  done  so,  but  Peter  remembered  the  in- 
stance down  to  the  very  desperation  in  the  face  of  the 
brooding  youngster.  And  it  seemed  to  Peter  that  this 
rejected  impulse  had  been  a  sign  that  he  was  destined 
to  be  an  evangel  to  the  whites  as  well  as  to  the  blacks. 

The  joy  of  Peter's  mission  bore  him  aloft  on  vast 
wings.  His  room  seemed  to  fall  away  from  him,  and 
he  was  moving  about  his  country,  releasing  the  two 
races  from  their  bonds  of  suspicion  and  cruelty. 

Slowly  the  old  manor  formed  about  Peter  again, 
and  he  perceived  that  a  tapping  on  the  door  had  sum- 
moned him  back.  He  walked  to  the  door  with  his 
heart  full  of  kindness  for  old  Rose.  She  was  bring- 
ing him  his  supper.  He  felt  as  if  he  could  take  the 
old  woman  in  his  arms,  and  out  of  the  mere  hugeness 
of  his  love  sweeten  her  bitter  life.  The  mulatto 
opened  the  door  as  eagerly  as  if  he  were  admitting 
some  long-desired  friend ;  but  when  the  shutter  swung 
back,  the  old  crone  and  her  salver  were  not  there.  All 
he  could  discern  in  the  darkness  were  the  white  pillars 


BIRTHRIGHT  223 

marking  the  night  into  panels.  There  was  no  light 
in  the  outer  kitchen.     The  whole  manor  was  silent. 

As  he  stood  listening,  the  knocking  was  repeated, 
this  time  more  faintly.  He  fixed  the  sound  at  the 
window.  He  closed  the  door,  walked  across  the  bril- 
liant room,  and  opened  the  shutters. 

For  several  moments  he  saw  nothing  more  than  the 
tall  quadrangle  of  blackness  which  the  window  framed; 
then  a  star  or  two  pierced  it;  then  something  moved. 
He  saw  a  woman's  figure  standing  close  to  the  case- 
ment, and  out  of  the  darkness  Cissie  Dildine's  voice 
asked  in  its  careful  English: 

*Teter,  may  I  come  in?'* 


CHAPTER  XIV 

FOR  a  full  thirty  seconds  Peter  Siner  stared  at  the 
girl  at  the  window  before,  even  with  her  prompt- 
ing, he  thought  of  the  amenity  of  asking  her  to  come 
inside.  As  a  further  delayed  courtesy,  he  drew  the 
Heppelwhite  chair  toward  her. 

Cissie's  face  looked  bloodless  in  the  blanched  light 
of  the  gasolene-lamp.  She  forced  a  faint,  doubtful 
smile. 

"You  don't  seem  very  glad  to  see  me,  Peter." 

"I  am,"  he  assured  her,  mechanically,  but  he  really 
felt  nothing  but  astonishment  and  dismay.  They  filled 
his  voice.  He  was  afraid  some  one  would  see  Cissie 
in  his  room.  His  thoughts  went  flitting  about  the 
premises,  calculating  the  positions  of  the  various  trees 
and  shrubs  in  relation  to  the  windows,  trying  to  deter- 
mine whether,  and  just  where,  in  his  brilliantly  lighted 
chamber  the  girl  could  be  seen  from  the  street. 

The  octoroon  made  no  further  comment  on  his  con- 
fusion. Her  eyes  wandered  from  him  over  the  stately 
furniture  and  up  to  the  stuccoed  ceiling. 

"They  told  me  you  lived  in  a  wonderful  room,"  she 
remarked  absently. 

"Yes,  it 's  very  nice,"  agreed  Peter  in  the  same  tone, 
wondering  what  might  be  the  object  of  her  hazardous 

224 


BIRTHRIGHT  225 

visit.  A  flicker  of  suspicion  suggested  that  s^he  was 
trying  to  compromise  him  out  of  revenge  for  his  re- 
nouncement of  her,  but  the  next  instant  he  rejected 
this. 

The  girl  accepted  the  chair  Peter  offered  and  con- 
tinued to  look  about. 

"1  hope  you  don't  mind  my  staring,  Peter,"  she  said. 

'*!  stared  when  I  first  came  here  to  stay,"  assisted 
Peter,  who  was  getting  a  little  more  like  himself,  even 
if  a  little  uneasier  at  the  consequences  of  this  visit. 

"Is  that  a  highboy?"  She  nodded  nervously  at  the 
piece  of  furniture.     **I  've  seen  pictures  of  them." 

"Uh  huh.  Revolutionary,  I  believe.  The  night 
wind  is  a  little  raw."  He  moved  across  the  room  and 
closed  the  jalousies,  and  thus  cut  off  the  night  wind  and 
also  the  west  view  from  the  street.  He  glanced  at  the 
heavy  curtains  parted  over  his  front  windows,  with  a 
keen  desire  to  swing  them  together.  Some  fragment 
of  his  mind  continued  the  surface  conversation  with 
Cissie. 

''Is  it  post-Revolutionary  or  pre-Revolutionary  ?" 
she  asked  with  a  preoccupied  air. 

"Post,  I  believe.  No,  pre.  I  always  meant  to 
examine  closely." 

*To  have  such  things  would  almost  teach  one  his- 
tory," Cissie  said. 

"Yeah ;  very  nice."  Peter  had  decided  that  the  girl 
was  in  direct  line  with  the  left  front  window  and  an 
opening  between  the  trees  to  the  street, 


226  BIRTHRIGHT 

The  girl's  eyes  followed  his. 

"Are  those  curtains  velour,  Peter?" 

"I — I  believe  so,"  agreed  the  man,  unhappily. 

"I — I  wonder  how  they  look  spread." 

Peter  seized  on  this  flimsy  excuse  with  a  wave  of 
relief  and  thankfulness  to  Cissie.  He  had  to  restrain 
himself  as  he  strode  across  the  room  and  swung  to- 
gether the  two  halves  of  the  somber  curtains  in  order 
to  preserve  an  appearance  of  an  exhibit.  His  fingers 
were  so  nervous  that  he  bungled  a  moment  at  the 
heavy  cords,  but  finally  the  two  draperies  swung  to- 
gether, loosing  a  little  cloud  of  dust.  He  drew  to- 
gether a  small  aperture  where  the  hangings  stood  apart, 
and  then  turned  away  in  sincere  relief. 

Cissie's  own  interest  in  historic  furniture  and  tex- 
tiles came  to  an  abrupt  conclusion.  She  gave  a  deep 
sigh  and  settled  back  into  her  chair.  She  sat  looking 
at  Peter  seriously,  almost  distressfully,  as  he  came  to- 
ward her. 

With  the  closing  of  the  curtains  and  the  establish- 
ment of  a  real  privacy  Peter  became  aware  once  again 
of  the  sweetness  and  charm  Cissie  always  held  for  him. 
He  still  wondered  what  had  brought  her,  but  he  was  no 
longer  uneasy. 

'Terhaps  I  'd  better  build  a  fire,"  he  suggested,  quite 
willing  now  to  make  her  visit  seem  not  unusual. 

'*Oh,  no," — she  spoke  with  polite  haste, — *T  'm  just 
going  to  stay  a  minute.  I  don't  know  what  you  '11 
think  of  me."     She  looked  intently  at  him. 


BIRTHRIGHT  227 

*T  think  it  lovely  of  you  to  come."  He  was  dis- 
gusted with  the  triteness  of  this  remark,  but  he  could 
think  of  nothing  else. 

*T  don't  know,"  demurred  the  octoroon,  with  her 
faint,  doubtful  smile.  ^'Persons  don't  welcome  beg- 
gars very  cordially." 

*Tf  all  beggars  were  so  charming — "  Apparently 
he  could  n't  escape  banalities. 

But  Cissie  interrupted  whatever  speech  he  meant  to 
make,  with  a  return  of  her  almost  painful  seriousness. 

'T  really  came  to  ask  you  to  help  me,  Peter." 

*'Then  your  need  has  brought  me  a  pleasure,  at  least." 
Some  impulse  kept  the  secretary  making  those  foolish 
complimentary  speeches  which  keep  a  conversation 
empty  and  insincere. 

"Oh,  Peter,  I  did  n't  come  here  for  you  to  talk  like 
that!     Will  you  do  what  I  want?" 

"What  do  you  want,  Cissie?"  he  asked,  sobered  by 
her  voice  and  manner. 

*T  want  you  to  help  me,  Peter." 

"All  right,  I  will."  He  spaced  his  words  with  his 
speculations  about  the  nature  of  her  request.  "What 
do  you  want  me  to  do?" 

"I  want  you  to  help  me  go  away." 

Peter  looked  at  her  in  surprise.  He  hardly  knew 
what  he  had  been  expecting,  but  it  was  not  this. 

Some  repressed  emotion  crept  into  the  girl's  voice. 

"Peter,  I — I  can't  stay  here  in  Hooker's  Bend  any 
longer.     I  want  to  go  away.     I — I  've  got  to  go  away." 


228  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter  stood  regarding  her  curiously  and  at  the  same 
time  sympathetically. 

"Where  do  you  want  to  go,  Cissie?" 

The  girl  drew  a  long  breath;  her  bosom  lifted  and 
dropped  abruptly. 

"I  don't  know ;  that  was  one  of  the  things  I  wanted 
to  ask  you  about." 

*'You  don't  know  where  you  want  to  go?"  He 
smiled  faintly.  *'How  do  you  know  you  want  to  go 
at  all?" 

*'0h,  Peter,  all  I  know  is  I  must  leave  Hooker's 
Bend !"  She  gave  a  little  shiver.  *T  'm  tired  of  it, 
sick  of  it — sick."  She  exhaled  a  breath,  as  if  she  were 
indeed  physically  ill.  Her  face  suggested  it;  her 
eyes  were  shadowed.  "Some  Northern  city,  I  sup- 
pose," she  added. 

"And  you  want  me  to  help  you?"  inquired  Peter, 
puzzled. 

She  nodded  silently,  with  a  woman's  instinct  to  make 
a  man  guess  the  favor  she  is  seeking. 

Then  it  occurred  to  Peter  just  what  sort  of  assist- 
ance the  girl  did  want.  It  gave  him  a  faint  shock 
that  a  girl  could  come  to  a  man  to  beg  or  to  borrow 
money.  It  was  a  white  man's  shock,  a  notion  he  had 
picked  up  in  Boston,  because  it  happens  frequently 
among  village  negroes,  and  among  them  it  holds  as 
little  significance  as  children  begging  one  another  for 
bites  of  apples. 

Peter  thought  over  his  bank  balance,  then  started 


BIRTHRIGHT  229 

toward  a  chest  of  drawers  where  he  kept  his  check- 
book. 

"Cissle,  if  I  can  be  of  any  service  to  you  in  a  sub- 
stantial way,  I  '11  be  more  than  glad  to — " 

She  put  out  a  hand  and  stopped  him;  then  talked 
straight  on  in  justification  of  her  determination  to  go 
away. 

*T  just  can't  endure  it  any  longer,  Peter."  She 
shuddered  again.  *T  can't  stand  Niggertown,  or  this 
side  of  town — any  of  it.  They — they  have  no  feel- 
ing for  a  colored  girl,  Peter,  not — not  a  speck !"  She 
gave  a  gasp,  and  after  a  moment  plunged  on  into  her 
wrongs :  ''When — when  one  of  us  even  walks  past 
on  the  street,  they — they  whistle  and  say  a-all  kinds  of 
things  out  loud,  j-just  as  if  w-we  were  n't  there  at  all. 
Th-they  don't  c-care;  we  're  just  n-nigger  w-women." 
Cissie  suddenly  began  sobbing  with  a  faint  catching 
noise,  her  full  bosom  shaken  by  the  spasms;  her  tears 
slowly  welling  over.  She  drew  out  a  handkerchief 
with  a  part  of  its  lace  edge  gone,  and  wiped  her  eyes 
and  cheeks,  holding  the  bit  of  cambric  in  a  ball  in  her 
palm,  like  a  negress,  instead  of  in  her  fingers,  like  a 
white  woman,  as  she  had  been  taught.  Then  she  drew 
a  deep  breath,  swallowed,  and  became  more  composed. 

Peter  stood  looking  in  helpless  anger  at  this  repre- 
sentative of  all  women  of  his  race. 

''Cissie,  that 's  street-corner  scum — the  dirty 
sewage — " 

"They  make  you  feel  naked,"  went  on  Cissie  in  the 


230  BIRTHRIGHT 

monotone  that  succeeds  a  fit  of  weeping,  "and  ashamed 
— and  afraid."  She  blinked  her  eyes  to  press  out  the 
undue  moisture,  and  looked  at  Peter  as  if  asking  what 
else  she  could  do  about  it  than  to  go  away  from  the 
village. 

''Will  it  be  any  better  away  from  here?"  suggested 
Peter,  doubtfully. 

Cissie  shook  her  head. 

"I — I  suppose  not,  if — if  I  go  alone." 

"I  should  n't  think  so,"  agreed  Peter,  somberly. 
He  started  to  hearten  her  by  saying  white  women  also 
underwent  such  trials,  if  that  would  be  a  consolation; 
but  he  knew  very  well  that  a  white  woman's  hardships 
were  as  nothing  compared  to  those  of  a  colored  woman 
who  was  endowed  with  any  grace  whatever. 

''And  besides,  Cissie,"  went  on  Reter,  who  somehow 
found  himself  arguing  against  the  notion  of  her  going, 
"I  hardly  see  how  a  decent  colored  woman  gets  around 
at  all.  Colored  boarding-houses  are  wretched  places. 
I  ate  and  slept  in  one  or  two,  coming  home.  Rotten." 
The  possibility  of  Cissie  finding  herself  in  such  a  place 
moved  Peter. 

The  girl  nodded  submissively  to  his  judgment,  and 
said  in  a  queer  voice :  "That 's  why  I — I  did  n't  want 
to  travel  alone,  Peter." 

"No,  it 's  a  bad  idea — "  and  then  Peter  perceived 
that  a  queer  quality  was  creeping  into  the  tete-a-tete. 

She  returned  his  look  unsteadily,  but  with  a  curious 
persistence. 


'You-yon   mean  you  want  m-me — to  go  with  you,  Cissie?"  he 
stammered 


BIRTHRIGHT  231 

*T — I  d-don't  want  to  travel  a-alone,  Peter,"  she 
gasped. 

Her  look,  her  voice  suddenly  brought  home  to  the 
man  the  amazing  connotation  of  her  words.  He  stared 
at  her,  felt  his  face  grow  warm  with  a  sharp,  peculiar 
embarrassment.  He  hardly  knew  what  to  say  or  do 
before  her  intent  and  piteous  eyes. 

*'You — you  mean  you  want  m-me — to  go  with  you, 
Cissie?"  he  stammered. 

The  girl  suddenly  began  trembling,  now  that  her 
last  reserve  of  indirection  had  been  torn  away. 

'^Listen,  Peter,"  she  began  breathlessly.  'T  'm  not 
the  sort  of  woman  you  think.  If  I  hadn't  accused 
myself,  we  'd  be  married  now.  I — I  wanted  you  more 
than  anything  in  the  world,  Peter,  but  I  did  tell  you. 
ISurely,  surely,  Peter,  that  shows  I  am  a  good  woman 
— th-the  real  I.  Dear,  dear  Peter,  there  is  a  difference 
between  a  woman  and  her  acts.  Peter,  you  're  the 
first  man  in  all  my  life,  in  a-all  my  life  who  ever  came 
to  me  k-kindly  and  gently;  so  I  had  to  1-love  you  and 
t-tell  you,  Peter." 

The  girl's  wavering  voice  broke  down  completely; 
her  face  twisted  with  grief.  She  groped  for  her  chair, 
sat  down,  buried  her  face  in  her  arms  on  the  table,  and 
broke  into  a  chattering  outbreak  of  sobs  that  sounded 
like  some  sort  of  laughter. 

Her  shoulders  shook ;  the  light  gleamed  on  her  soft, 
black  Caucasian  hair.  There  was  a  little  rent  in  one  of 
the  seams  in  her  cheap  jacket,  at  one  of  the  curves 


232  BIRTHRIGHT 

where  her  side  molded  into  her  shoulder.  The  custom- 
made  garment  had  found  Cissie's  body  of  richer  mold 
than  it  had  been  designed  to  shield.  And  yet  in  Peter's 
distress  and  tenderness  and  embarrassment,  this  little 
rent  held  his  attention  and  somehow  misprized  the 
wearer. 

It  seemed  symbolic  in  the  searching  white  light.  He 
could  see  the  very  break  in  the  thread  and  the  widened 
stitches  at  the  ends  of  the  rip.  Her  coat  had  given 
way  because  she  was  modeled  more  nearly  like  the 
Venus  de  Milo  than  the  run  of  womankind.  He  felt 
the  little  irony  of  the  thing,  and  yet  was  quite  unable 
to  resist  the  comparison. 

And  then,  too,  she  had  referred  again  to  her  sin  of 
peculation.  A  woman  enjoys  confessions  from  a  man. 
A  man's  sins  are  mostly  vague,  indefinite  things  to  a 
woman,  a  shadowy  background  which  brings  out  the 
man  in  a  beautiful  attitude  of  repentance;  but  when  a 
woman  confesses,  the  man  sees  all  her  past  as  a  close-up 
with  full  lighting.  He  has  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  just  what  she  's  talking  about,  and  the  woman 
herself  grows  shadowy  and  unreal.  Men  have  too 
many  blots  not  to  demand  whiteness  in  women.  By 
striking  some  such  average,  nature  keeps  the  race  a 
going  moral  concern. 

So  Peter,  as  he  stood  looking  down  on  the  woman 
who  was  asking  him  to  marry  her,  was  filled  with  as 
unhappy  and  as  impersonal  a  tenderness  as  a  bom 
brother.     He  recalled  the  thoughts  which  had  come 


BIRTHRIGHT  233 

to  him  when  he  saw  Cissie  passing  his  window.  She 
was  not  the  sort  of  woman  he  wanted  to  marry;  she 
was  not  his  idea'l.  He  cast  about  in  his  head  for  some 
gentle  way  of  putting  her  off,  so  that  he  would  not 
hurt  her  any  further,  if  such  an  easement  were  possible. 

As  he  stood  thinking,  he  found  not  a  pretext,  but  a 
reality.  He  stooped  over,  and  put  a  hand  lightly  on 
each  of  her  arms. 

''Cissie,"  he  said  in  a  serious,  even  voice,  "if  I 
should  ever  marry  any  one,  it  would  be  you." 

The  girl  paused  in  her  sobbing  at  his  even,  passion- 
less voice. 

"Then  you — you  won't  ?"  she  whispered  in  her  arms. 

*T  can't,  Cissie."  Now  that  he  was  saying  it,  he 
uttered  the  words  very  evenly  and  smoothly.  'T  can't, 
dear  Cissie,  because  a  great  work  has  just  come  into  my 
life."  He  paused,  expecting  her  to  ask  some  question, 
but  she  lay  silent,  with  her  face  in  her  arms,  evidently 
listening. 

"Cissie,  I  think,  in  fact  I  know,  I  can  demonstrate 
to  all  the  South,  both  white  and  black,  the  need  of  a 
better  and  more  sincere  understanding  between  our 
two  races." 

Peter  did  not  feel  the  absurdity  of  such  a  speech  in 
such  a  place.  He  patted  her  arm,  but  there  was  some- 
thing in  the  warmth  of  her  flesh  that  disturbed  his 
austerity  and  caused  him  to  lift  his  hand  to  the  more 
impersonal  axis  of  her  shoulder.  He  proceeded  to 
develop  his  idea. 


234  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Cissie,  just  a  moment  ago  you  were  complaining 
of  the  insults  you  meet  everywhere.  I  believe,  if  I 
can  spread  my  ideas,  Cissie,  that  even  a  pretty  colored 
girl  like  you  may  walk  the  streets  without  being  sub- 
jected to  obscenity  on  every  corner."  His  tone  uncon- 
sciously patronized  Cissie's  prettiness  with  the  patron- 
age of  the  male  for  the  less  significant  thing,  as  though 
her  ripeness  for  love  and  passion  and  children  were, 
after  all,  not  comparable  with  what  he,  a  male,  could 
do  in  the  way  of  significantly  molding  life. 

Cissie  lifted  her  head  and  dried  her  eyes. 

''So  you  aren't  going  to  marry  me,  Peter?" 
Woman-like,  now  that  she  was  well  into  the  subject, 
she  was  far  less  embarrassed  than  Peter.  She  had 
had  her  cry. 

''Why — er — considering  this  work,  Cissie — " 

"Aren't  you  going  to  marry  anybody,  Peter?" 

The  artist  in  Peter,  the  thing  the  girl  loVed  in  him, 
caught  again  that  Messianic  vision  of  himself. 

"Why,  no,  Cissie,"  he  said,  with  a  return  of  his 
inspiration  of  an  hour  ago;  "I'll  be  going  here  and 
there  all  over  the  South  preaching  this  gospel  of  kindli- 
ness and  tolerance,  of  forgiveness  of  the  faults  of 
others."  Cissie  looked  at  him  with  a  queer  expression. 
"I  '11  show  the  white  people  that  they  should  treat  the 
negro  with  consideration  not  for  the  sake  of  the  negro, 
but  for  the  sake  of  themselves.  It 's  so  simple,  Cissie, 
it 's  so  logical  and  clear — " 

The  girl  shook  her  head  sadly. 


BIRTHRIGHT  235 

"And  you  don't  want  me  to  go  with  you,  Peter?" 
"Why,  n-no,  Cissie ;  a  girl  Hke  you  could  n't  go. 
Perhaps  I  '11  be  misunderstood  in  places,  perhaps  I  may 
have  to  leave  a  town  hurriedly,  or  be  swung  over  the 
walls,  like  Paul,  in  a  basket."  He  attempted  to  treat 
it  lightly. 

But  the  girl  looked  at  him  with  a  horror  dawning 
in  her  melancholy  face. 

"Peter,  do  you  really  mean  that?"  she  whispered. 
"Why,  truly.     You  don't  imagine — " 
The  octoroon  opened  her  dark  eyes  until  she  might 
have  been  some  weird. 

"Oh,  Peter,  please,  please  put  such  a  mad  idea  away 
from  you !  Peter,  you  've  been  living  here  alone  in 
this  old  house  until  you  don't  see  things  clearly.  Dear 
Peter,  don't  you  know?  You  can't  go  out  and  talk  like 
that  to  white  folks  and — and  not  have  some  terrible 
thing  happen  to  you!  Oh,  Peter,  if  you  would  only 
marry  me,  it  would  -cure  you  of  such  wildness !"  In- 
voluntarily she  got  up,  holding  out  her  arms  to  him, 
offering  herself  to  his  needs,  with  her  frightened  eyes 
fixed  on  his. 

It  made  him  exquisitely  uncomfortable  again.  He 
made  a  little  sound  designed  to  comfort  and  reassure 
her.  He  would  do  very  well.  He  was  something  of 
a  diplomat  in  his  way.  He  had  got  along  with  the  boys 
in  Harvard  very  well  indeed.  In  fact,  he  was  rather 
a  man  of  the  world.  'No  need  to  worry  about  him, 
though  it  was  awfully  sweet  of  her. 


236  BIRTHRIGHT 

Cissie  picked  up  her  handkerchief  with  its  torn  edge, 
which  she  had  laid  on  the  table.  Evidently  she  was 
about'  to  go. 

"I  surely  don't  know  what  will  become  of  me,"  she 
said,  looking  at  it. 

In  a  reversal  of  feeling  Peter  did  not  want  her  to  go 
away  quite  then.  He  cast  about  for  some  excuse  to 
detain  her  a  moment  longer. 

"Now,  Cissie,"  he  began,  "if  you  are  really  going 
to  leave  Hooker's  Bend — " 

*T  'm  not  going,"  she  said,  with  a  long  exhalation. 
"I — "  she  swallowed — "I  just  thought  that  up  to — 
ask  you  to — to —  You  see,"  she  explained,  a  little 
breathless,  "I  thought  you  still  loved  me  and  had  for- 
given me  by  the  way  you  watched  for  me  every  day  at 
the  window." 

This  speech  touched  Peter  more  keenly  than  any  'of 
the  little  drama  the  girl  had  invented.  It  hit  him  so 
shrewdly  he  could  think  of  nothing  more  to  say. 

Cissie  moved  toward  the  window  and  undid  the 
latch. 

"Good  night,  Peter."  She  paused  a  moment,  with 
her  hand  on  the  catch.  "Peter,"  she  said,  "I  'd  almost 
rather  see  you  marry  some  other  girl  than  try  so  terrible 
a  thing." 

The  big,  full-blooded  athlete  smiled  faintly. 

"You  seem  perfectly  sure  marriage  would  cure  me  of 
my  mission." 


BIRTHRIGHT  237 

Cissie's  face  reddened  faintly. 

"I  think  so,"  she  said  briefly.  "Good  night,"  and 
she  disappeared  in  the  dark  space  she  had  opened,  and 
closed  the  jalousies  softly  after  her. 


CHAPTER  [XV 

GISSIE  DILDINE'S  conviction  that  marriage 
would  cure  Peter  of  his  mission  persisted  in  the 
mulatto's  mind  long  after  the  glamour  of  the  girl  had 
faded  and  his  room  had  regained  the  bleak  emptiness 
of  a  bachelor's  bedchamber. 

Cissie  had  been  so  brief  and  positive  in  her  state- 
ment that  Peter,  who  had  not  thought  on  the  point  at 
all,  grew  more  than  half  convinced  she  was  right. 

Now  that  he  pondered  over  it,  it  seemed  there  was 
a  difference  between  the  outlook  of  a  bachelor  and  that 
of  a  married  man.  The  former  considered  humanity 
as  a  balloonist  surveys  a  throng, — immediately  and 
without  perspective, — but  the  latter  always  sees  man- 
kind through  the  frame  of  his  family.  A  single  man 
tends  naturally  to  philosophy  and  reform;  a  married 
man  to  administration  and  statesmanship.  There  have 
been  no  great  unmarried  statesmen ;  there  have  been  no 
great  married  philosophers  or  reformers. 

Now  that  Cissie  had  pointed  out  this  universal  rule, 
Peter  saw  it  very  clearly.  And  Peter  suspected  that 
beneath  this  rough  classification,  and  conditioning  it, 
lay  a  plexus  of  obscure  mental  and  physical  reactions 
set  up  by  the  relations  between  husband  and  wife.  It 
might  very  well  be  there  was  a  difference  between  the 

238 


BIRTHRIGHT  239 

actual  cerebral  and  nervous  structure  of  a  married  man 
and  that  of  a  single  man. 

At  any  rate,  after  these  reflections,  Peter  now  felt 
sure  that  marriage  would  cure  him  of  his  mission ;  but 
how  had  Cissie  known  it?  How  had  she  struck  out 
so  involved  a  theory,  one  might  say,  in  the  toss  of  a 
head?  The  more  Peter  thought  it  over  the  more  ex- 
traordinary it  became.  It  was  another  one  of  those 
explosive  ideas  which  Cissie,  apparently,  had  the  faculty 
of  creating  out  of  a  pure  mental  vacuum. 

All  this  philosophy  aside,  Cissie's  appearance  just  in 
the  nick  of  his  inspiration,  her  surprising  proposal  of 
marriage,  and  his  refusal,  had  accomplished  one  thing: 
it  had  committed  Peter  to  the  program  he  had  outlined 
to  the  girl. 

Indeed,  there  seemed  something  fatalistic  in  such  a 
concatenation  of  events.  Siner  wondered  whether  or 
not  he  would  have  obeyed  his  vision  without  this  added 
impulse  from  Cissie.  He  did  not  know ;  but  now,  since 
it  had  all  come  about  just  as  it  had,  he  suspected  he 
would  have  been  neglectful.  He  felt  as  if  a  dangerous 
but  splendid  channel  had  been  opened  before  his  eyes, 
and  almost  at  the  same  instant  a  hand  had  reached  down 
and  directed  his  life  into  it.  This  fancy  moved  the 
mulatto.  As  he  got  himself  ready  for  bed,  he  kept 
thinking : 

''Well,  my  life  is  settled  at  last.  There  is  nothing 
else  for  me  to  do.  Even  if  this  should  end  terribly  for 
me,  as  Cissie  imagines,  my  life  won't  be  wasted." 


240  BIRTHRIGHT 

Next  morning  Peter  Siner  was  awakened  by  old 
Rose  Hobbett  thrusting  her  head  in  at  his  door,  staring 
around,  and  finally,  seeing  Peter  in  bed,  grumbling : 

''Why  is  you  still  heah,  black  man?" 

The  secretary  opened  his  eyes  in  astonishment. 

"Why  shouldn't  I  be  here?" 

*'Nobody  wuz  'speckin'  you  to  be  heah/'  The  crone 
withdrew  her  head  and  vanished. 

Peter  wondered  at  this  unaccustomed  interest  of 
Rose,  then  hurried  out  of  bed,  supposing  himself  late 
for  breakfast. 

A  dense  fog  had  come  up  from  the  river,  and  the 
moisture  floating  into  his  open  windows  had  dampened 
his  whole  room.  Peter  stepped  briskly  to  the  screen 
and  began  splashing  himself.  It  was  only  in  the  midst 
of  his  ablutions  that  he  remembered  his  inspiration  and 
resolve  of  the  previous  evening.  As  he  squeezed  the 
water  over  his  powerfully  molded  body,  he  recalled  it 
almost  impersonally.  It  might  have  happened  to  some 
third  person.  He  did  not  even  recall  distinctly  the 
threads  of  the  logic  which  had  lifted  him  to  such  a 
Pisgah,  and  showed  him  the  whole  South  as  a  new  and 
promised  land.  However,  he  knew  that  he  could  start 
his  train  of  thought  again,  and  again  ascend  the 
mountain. 

Floating  through  the  fog  into  his  open  window  came 
the  noises  of  the  village  as  it  set  about  living  another 
day,  precisely  as  it  had  lived  innumerable  days  in  the 
past.     The  blast  of  the  six-o'clock  whistle  from  the 


BIRTHRIGHT  241 

planing-mill  made  the  loose  sashes  of  his  windows 
rattle.  Came  a  lowing  of  cows  and  a  clucking  of  hens, 
a  woman's  calling.  The  voices  of  men  in  conversation 
came  so  distinctly  through  the  pall  that  it  seemed  a 
number  of  persons  must  be  moving  about  their  morn- 
ing work,  talking  and  shouting,  right  in  the  Renfrew 
yard. 

But  the  thing  that  impressed  Peter  most  was  the 
solidity  and  stability  of  this  Southern  village  that  he 
could  hear  moving  around  him,  and  its  certainty  to  go 
on  in  the  future  precisely  as  it  had  gone  on  in  the  past. 
It  was  a  tremendous  force.  The  very  old  manor  about 
him  seemed  huge  and  intrenched  in  long  traditions, 
while  he,  Peter  Siner,  was  just  a  brown  man,  naked 
behind  a  screen  and  rather  cold  from  the  fog  and  damp 
of  the  morning. 

He  listened  to  old  Rose  clashing  the  kitchen  utensils. 
As  he  drew  on  his  damp  underwear,  he  wondered  what 
he  could  say  to  old  Rose  that  would  persuade  her  into 
a  little  kindliness  and  tolerance  for  the  white  people. 
As  he  listened  he  felt  hopeless ;  he  could  never  explain 
to  the  old  creature  that  her  own  happiness  depended 
upon  the  charity  she  extended  to  others.  She  could 
never  understand  it.  She  would  live  and  die  precisely 
ithe  same  bitter  old  beldam  that  she  was,  and  nothing 
could  ever  assuage  her. 

While  Peter  was  thinking  of  the  old  creature,  she 
came  shuffling  along  the  back  piazza  with  his  breakfast. 
She  let  herself  in  by  lifting  one  knee  to  a  horizontal, 


242  BIRTHRIGHT 

balancing  the  tray  on  it,  then  opening  the  door  with 
her  freed  hand. 

When  the  shutter  swung  open,  it  displayed  the  old 
crone  standing  on  one  foot,  wearing  a  man's  grimy 
sock,  which  had  fallen  down  over  a  broken,  run-down 
shoe. 

In  Peter's  mood  the  thought  of  this  wretched  old 
woman  putting  on  such  garments  morning  after  morn- 
ing was  unspeakably  pathetic.  He  thought  of  his  own 
mother,  who  had  lived  and  died  only  a  shade  or  two 
removed  from  the  old  crone's  condition. 

Rose  put  down  her  foot,  and  entered  the  room  with 
her  lips  poked  out,  ready  to  make  instant  attack  if 
Peter  mentioned  his  lack  of  supper  the  night  before. 

''Aunt  Rose,"  asked  the  secretary,  with  his  friendly 
intent  in  his  tones,  "how  came  you  to  look  in  this 
morning  and  say  you  did  n't  expect  to  find  me  in  my 
room  ?" 

She  gave  an  unintelligible  grunt,  pushed  the  lamp 
to  one  side,  and  eased  her  tray  to  the  table. 

Peter  finished  touching  his  tie  before  one  of  those 
old-fashioned  mirrors,  not  of  cut-glass,  yet  perfectly 
true.  He  came  from  the  mirror  and  moved  his  chair, 
out  of  force  of  habit,  so  he  could  look  up  the  street 
toward  the  Arkwrights'. 

"Aunt  Rose,"  said  the  young  man,  wistfully,  **why 
are  you  always  angry?" 

She  bridled  at  this  extraordinary  inquiry. 


BIRTHRIGHT  243 

"Me?" 

"Yes,  you." 

She  hesitated  a  moment,  thinking  how  she  could 
make  her  reply  a  personal  assault  on  Peter. 

"  'Cause  you  come  heah,  'sputin'  my  rights,  da'  's' 
why." 

"No,"  demurred  Peter,  "you  were  quarreling  in  the 
kitchen  the  first  morning  I  came  here,  and  you  did  n't 
know  I  was  on  the  place." 

"Well — I  got  my  tribulations,"  she  snapped,  staring 
suspiciously  at  these  unusual  questions. 

There  was  a  pause;  then  Peter  said  placatingly: 

"I  was  just  thinking.  Aunt  Rose,  you  might  forget 
your  tribulations  if  you  did  n't  ride  them  all  the  time." 

"Hoccum!  What  you  mean,  ridin'  my  tribulations?" 

"Thinking  about  them.  The  old  Captain,  for  in- 
stance ;  you  are  no  happier  always  abusing  the  old  Cap- 
tain." 

The  old  virago  gave  a  sniff,  tossed  her  head,  but 
kept  her  eyes  rolled  suspiciously  on  Peter. 

"Very  often  the  way  we  think  and  act  makes  us 
happy  or  unhappy,"  moralized  Peter,  broadly. 

"Look  heah,  nigger,  you  ain't  no  preacher  sont  out 
by  de  Lawd  to  me !" 

"Anyway,  I  am  sure  you  would  feel  more  friendly 
toward  the  Captain  if  you  acted  openly  with  him ;  for 
instance,  if  you  did  n't  take  off  all  his  cold  victuals,  and 
handkerchiefs  and  socks,  soap,  kitchen  ware — " 


244-  BIRTHRIGHT 

The  cook  snorted. 

"I  'd  feel  dat  much  mo*  nekked  an'  hongry,  dat  's 
how  I  'd  feel/' 

"Perhaps,  if  you  'd  start  over,  he  might  give  you  a 
better  wage." 

"Huh!"  she  snorted  in  an  access  of  irony.  "I  see 
dat  skinflint  gib'n'  me  a  better  wage.  Puuh!"  Then 
suddenly  she  realized  where  the  conversation  had  wan- 
dered, and  stared  at  the  secretary  with  widening  eyes. 
"Good  Lawd !  Did  dat  fool  Cap'n  set  up  a  nigger  in 
dis  bedroom  winder  jes  to  ketch  ole  Rose  packin'  off  a 
few  ole  lef '-overs?"  Peter  began  a  hurried  denial,  but 
she  rushed  on :  "'Fo'  Gawd,  I  hopes  his  viddles  chokes 
him!  I  hope  his  ole  smoke-house  falls  down  on  his 
ole  haid.     I  hope  to  Jesus — " 

Peter  pleaded  with  her  not  to  think  the  Captain  was 
behind  his  observations,  but  the  hag  rushed  out  of  the 
bedroom,  swinging  her  head  from  side  to  side,  uttering 
the  most  terrible  maledictions.  She  would  show  him ! 
She  would  n't  put  another  foot  in  his  old  kitchen. 
Wild  horses  could  n't  drag  her  into  his  smoke-house 
again. 

Peter  ran  to  the  door  and  called  after  her  down  the 
piazza,  trying  to  exonerate  the  Captain ;  but  she  either 
did  not  or  would  not  hear,  and  vanished  inta  the 
kitchen,  still  furious. 

Old  Rose  made  Peter  so  uneasy  that  he  deserted  his 
breakfast  midway  and  hurried  to  the  library.  In  the 
solemn  old  room  he  found  the  Captain  alone  and  in 


BIRTHRIGHT  245 

rather  a  pleased  mood.  The  old  gentleman  stood 
patting  and  alining  a  pile  of  manuscript.  As  the  mu- 
latto entered  he  exclaimed : 

"Well,  here*s  Peter  again!"  as  if  his  secretary  had 
been  off  on  a  long  journey.  Immediately  afterward 
he  added,  "Peter,  guess  what  I  did  last  night."  His 
voice  was  full  of  triumph. 

Peter  was  thinking  about  Aunt  Rose,  and  stood  look- 
ing at  the  Captain  without  the  slightest  idea. 

"I  wrote  all  of  this," — he  indicated  his  manuscript, — 
"over  a  hundred  pages." 

Peter  considered  the  work  without  much  enthusiasm. 

"You  must  have  worked  all  night." 

The  old  attorney  rubbed  his  hands. 

"I  think  I  may  claim  a  touch  of  inspiration  last  night, 
Peter.  Reminiscences  rippled  from  under  my  pen, 
propitious  words,  prosperous  sentences.  Er — the  fact 
is,  Peter,  you  will  see,  when  you  begin  copying,  I  had 
come  to  a  matter — a — a  matter  of  some  moment  in  my 
life.  Every  life  contains  such  moments,  Peter.  I  had 
meant  to  write  something  in  the  nature  of  a  defen — an 
explanation,  Peter.  But  after  you  left  the  Hbrary  last 
night  it  suddenly  occurred  to  me  just  to  give  each  fact 
as  it  took  place,  quite  frankly.  So  I  did  that — not — 
not  what  I  meant  to  write,  at  all — ah.  As  you  copy  it, 
you  may  find  it  not  entirely  without  some  interest  to 
yourself,  Peter." 

"To  me?"  repeated  Peter,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
inattentative. 


246  BIRTHRIGHT 

**Yes,  to  yourself."  The  Captain  was  oddly  moved. 
He  took  his  hands  off  the  script,  walked  a  little  away 
from  the  table,  came  back  to  it.  ''It — ah — may  ex- 
plain a  good  many  things  that — er — may  have  puzzled 
you."  He  cleared  his  throat  and  shifted  his  subject 
briskly.  "We  ought  to  be  thinking  about  a  publisher. 
What  publisher  shall  we  have  publish  these  reminis- 
cences? Make  some  stir  in  Tennessee's  political  cir- 
cles, Peter ;  tremendous  sales ;  clear  up  questions  every- 
body is  interested  in.  H-m — ^well,  I  '11  walk  down 
town  and  you" — he  motioned  to  the  script — ''begin 
copying — " 

"By  the  way,  Captain,"  said  Peter  as  the  old  gentle- 
man turned  for  the  door,  "has  Rose  said  anything  to 
you  yet?" 

The  old  man  detached  his  mind  from  his  script  with 
an  obvious  effort. 

"What  about?" 

"About  leaving  your  service." 

"No-o,  not  especially ;  she 's  always  leaving  my 
service." 

"But  in  this  case  it  was  my  fault ;  at  least  I  brought 
it  about.  I  remonstrated  with  her  about  taking  your 
left-over  victuals  and  socks  and  handkerchiefs  and 
things.     She  was  quite  offended." 

"Yes,  it  always  offends  her,"  agreed  the  old  man, 
impatiently.  "I  never  mention  it  myself  unless  I  catch 
her  red-handed;  then  I  storm  a  little  to  keep  her  in 
bounds." 


BIRTHRIGHT  247 

Naturally,  Peter  knew  of  this  extraordinary  system 
of  service  in  the  South;  nevertheless  he  was  shocked  at 
its  implications. 

''Captain,"  suggested  Peter,  "wouldn't  you  find  it 
to  your  own  interest  to  give  old  Rose  a  full  cash  pay- 
ment for  her  services  and  allow  her  to  buy  her  own 
things?" 

The  Captain  dismissed  the  subject  with  a  wave  of 
his  hand.  ''She's  a  nigger,  Peter;  you  can't  hire  a 
nigger  not  to  steal.  Born  in  'em.  Then  I  'm  not  sure 
but  what  it  would  be  compounding  a  felony,  hiring  a 
person  not  to  steal ;  might  be  so  construed.  Well,  now, 
there  's  the  script.  Read  it  carefully,  my  boy,  and  re- 
member that  in  order  to  gain  a  certain  status  quo  cer- 
tain antecedents  are — are  absolutely  necessary,  Peter. 
Without  them  my — my  life  would  have  been  quite 
empty,  Peter.  It 's — it 's  very  strange — amazing. 
You  will  understand  as  you  read.  I  '11  be  back  to  din- 
ner, so  good-by."  In  the  strangest  agitation  the  old 
Captain  walked  out  of  the  library.  The  last  glimpse 
Peter  had  of  him  was  his  meager  old  figure  silhouetted 
against  the  cold  gray  fog  that  filled  the  compound. 

Neither  the  Captain's  agitation  nor  his  obvious  de- 
sire that  Peter  should  at  once  read  the  new  manuscript 
really  got  past  the  threshold  of  the  mulatto's  conscious- 
ness. Peter's  thoughts  still  hovered  about  old  Rose, 
and  from  that  point  spread  to  the  whole  system  of  col- 
ored service  in  the  South.  For  Rose's  case  was  typical. 
The  wage  of  cooks  in  small  Southern  villages  is  a 


248  BIRTHRIGHT 

pittance — ^and  what  they  can  steal.  The  tragedy  of  the 
mothers  of  a  whole  race  working  for  their  board  and 
thievings  came  over  Peter  with  a  rising  grimness. 
And  there  was  no  public  sentiment  against  such  prac- 
tice. It  was  accepted  everywhere  as  natural  and  in- 
evitable. The  negresses  were  never  prosecuted;  no 
effort  was  made  to  regain  the  stolen  goods.  The  em- 
ployers realized  that  what  they  paid  would  not  keep 
soul  and  body  together ;  that  it  was  steal  or  perish. 

It  was  a  fantastic  truth  that  for  any  colored  girl  to 
hire  into  domestic  service  in  Hooker's  Bend  was  more 
or  less  entering  an  apprenticeship  in  peculation.  What 
she  could  steal  was  the  major  portion  of  her  wage,  if 
two  such  anomalous  terms  may  be  used  in  conjunction. 

Yet,  strange  to  say,  the  negro  women  of  the  village 
were  quite  honest  in  other  matters.  They  paid  their 
small  debts.  They  took  their  mistresses'  pocket-books 
to  market  and  brought  back  the  correct  change.  And 
if  a  mistress  grew  too  indignant  about  something  they 
had  stolen,  they  would  bring  it  back  and  say :  "'Here 
is  a  new  one.  I  'd  rather  buy  you  a  new  one  than  have 
you  think  I  would  take  anything." 
I  The  whole  system  was  the  lees  of  slavery,  and  was 
surely  the  most  demoralizing,  the  most  grotesque 
method  of  hiring  service  in  the  whole  civilized  world. 
It  was  so  absurd  that  its  mere  relation  lapses  into 
humor,  that  bane  of  black  folk. 

Such  painful  thoughts  filled  the  gloomy  library  and 
harassed  Peter  in  his  copying.     He  took  his  work  to  the 


BIRTHRIGHT  249 

window  and  tried  to  concentrate  upon  it,  but  his  mind 
kept  playing  away. 

Indeed,  it  seemed  to  Peter  that  to  sit  in  this  old 
room  and  rewrite  the  wordy  meanderings  of  the  old 
gentleman's  book  was  the  very  height  of  emptiness. 
How  utterly  futile,  when  all  around  him,  on  every 
hand,  girls  like  Cissie  Dildine  were  being  indentured 
to  corruption!  And,  as  far  as  Peter  knew,  he  was 
the  only  person  in  the  South  who  saw  it  or  felt  it  or 
cared  anything  at  all  about  it. 

When  Cissie  Dildine  came  to  the  surface  of  Peter's 
mind  she  remained  there,  whirling  around  and  around 
in  his  chaotic  thoughts.  He  began  talking  to  her 
image,  after  a  certain  dramatic  trick  of  his  mind,  and 
she  began  offering  her  environment  as  an  excuse  for 
what  had  come  between  them  and  estranged  them. 
She  stole,  but  she  had  been  trained  to  steal.  She  was 
a  thief,  the  victim  of  an  immense  immorality.  The 
charm  of  Cissie,  her  queer,  swift-working  intuition,  the 
candor  of  her  confession,  her  voluptuousness — all  came 
rushing  do'wn  on  Peter,  harassing  him  with  anger  and 
love  and  desire.  To  copy  any  more  script  became  im- 
possible. He  lost  his  place;  he  hardly  knew  what  he 
was  writing. 

He  flung  aside  the  whole  work,  got  to  his  feet  with 
the  imperative  need  of  an  athlete  for  the  open.  He 
started  out  of  the  room,  but  as  an  afterthought  scrib- 
bled a  nervous  line,  telling  the  Captain  he  might  not 
be  back  for  dinner.     Then  he  found  his  hat  and  coat 


250  BIRTHRIGHT 

and  walked  briskly  around  the  piazza  to  the  front 
gate. 

The  trees  and  shrubs  were  dripping,  but  the  fog  had 
almost  cleared  away,  leaving  only  a  haze  in  the  air. 
A  pale,  level  line  of  it  cut  across  the  scarp  of  the  Big 
Hill.  The  sun  shone  with  a  peculiar  soft  light  through 
the  vapors. 

As  Peter  passed  out  at  the  gate,  the  fancy  came  to 
him  that  he  might  very  well  be  starting  on  his  mission. 
It  came  with  a  sort  of  surprise.  He  wondered  how 
other  men  had  set  about  reforms.  With  unpremedita- 
tion?  He  wondered  to  whom  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
preached  his  first  sermon.  The  thought  of  that  young 
Galilean,  sensitive,  compassionate,  inexperienced,  speak- 
ing to  his  first  hearer,  filled  Peter  with  a  strange 
trembling  tenderness.  He  looked  about  the  familiar 
street  of  Hooker's  Bend,  the  old  trees  over  the  pave- 
ment, the  shabby  village  houses,  and  it  all  held  a 
strangeness  when  thus  juxtaposed  to  the  thought  of 
Nazareth  nineteen  hundred  years  before. 

The  mulatto  started  down  the  street  with  his  foot- 
steps quickened  by  a  sense  of  spiritual  adventure. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

ON  the  corner,  against  the  blank  south  wall  of 
Hobbett's  store,  Peter  Siner  saw  the  usual  crowd 
of  negroes  warming  themselves  in  the  soft  sunshine. 
They  were  slapping  one  another,  scuffling,  making 
feints  with  knives  or  stones,  all  to  an  accompaniment 
of  bragging,  profanity,  and  loud  laughter.  Their  be- 
havior was  precisely  that  of  adolescent  white  boys  of 
fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of  age. 

Jim  Pink  Staggs  was  furnishing  much  amusement 
with  an  impromptu  sleight-of-hand  exhibition.  The 
black  audience  clustered  around  Jim  Pink  in  his  pin- 
stripe trousers  and  blue-serge  coat.  They  exhibited 
not  the  least  curiosity  as  to  the  mechanics  of  the  tricks, 
but  asked  for  more  and  still  more,  with  the  naive 
delight  of  children  in  the  mysterious. 

Peter  Siner  walked  down  the  street  with  his  Mes- 
sianic impulse  strong  upon  him.  He  was  in  that  stage 
of  feeling  toward  his  people  where  a  man's  emotions 
take  the  color  of  religion.  Now,  as  he  approached  the 
crowd  of  negroes,  he  wondered  what  he  could  say,  how 
he  could  transfer  to  them  the  ideas  and  the  emotion 
that  lifted  up  his  own  heart. 

As  he  drew  nearer,  his  concern  mounted  to  anxiety. 
Indeed,  what  could  he  say?     How  could  he  present 

251 


252  BIRTHRIGHT 

so  grave  a  message  ?  He  was  right  among  them  now. 
One  of  the  negroes  jostled  him  by  striking  around  his 
body  at  another  negro.  Peter  stopped.  His  heart 
beat,  and  he  had  a  queer  sensation  of  being  operated 
by  some  power  outside  himself.  Next  moment  he 
heard  himself  saying  in  fairly  normal  tones: 

"Fellows,  do  you  think  we  ought  to  be  idling  on  the 
street  corners  like  this?  We  ought  to  be  at  work, 
don't  you  think?" 

The  horse-play  stopped  at  this  amazing  sentiment. 

"Whuffo,  Peter?"  asked  a  voice. 

"Because  the  whole  object  of  our  race  nowadays  is 
to  gain  the  respect  of  other  races,  and  more  particularly 
our  own  self-respect.  We  have  n't  it  now.  The  only 
way  to  get  it  is  to  work,  work,  work." 

"Ef  you  feel  lak  yon  'd  ought  to  go  to  wuck,"  sug- 
gested one  astonished  hearer,  "you  done  got  my 
p'mission,  black  boy,  to  hit  yo'  natchel  gait  to  de  fust 
job  in  sight." 

Peter  was  hardly  less  surprised  than  his  hearers  at 
what  he  was  saying.  He  paid  no  attention  to  the  in- 
terruption. 

"Fellows,  it 's  the  only  way  our  colored  people  can 
get  on  and  make  the  most  out  of  Hfe.  Persistent  labor 
is  the  very  breath  of  the  soul,  men;  it — it  is."  Here 
Peter  caught  an  intimation  of  the  whole  flow  of  energy 
through  the  universe,  focusing  in  man  and  being  trans- 
formed into  mental  and  moral  values.  And  it  sud- 
denly occurred  to  him  that  the  real  worth  of  any  people 


BIRTHRIGHT  253 

was  their  efficiency  in  giving  this  flow  of  force  moral 
and  spiritual  forms.  That  is  the  end  of  man;  that 
is  what  is  prefigured  when  a  baby's  hand  reaches  for  the 
sun.  But  Peter  considered  his  audience,  and  his 
thought  stammered  on  his  tongue.  The  Persimmon, 
with  his  protruding,  half-asleep  eyes,  was  saying: 

"I  don'  know,  Peter,  as  I 's  so  partic'lar  'bout  makin' 
de  mos'  out'n  dis  worl'.  You  know  de  Bible  say — hit 
say," — here  the  Persimmon's  voice  dropped  a  tone 
lower,  in  unconscious  imitation  of  negro  preachers, — 
''la-ay  not  up  yo'  treasure  on  uth,  wha  moss  do  corrup', 
an'  thieves  break  th'ugh  an'  steal." 

Came  a  general  nodding  and  agreement  of  soft, 
blurry  voices. 

"'At  sho  whut  it  say,  black  man!" 

"Shodo!" 

"Lawd  God  loves  a  nigger  on  a  street  corner  same  as 
He  do  a  millionaire  in  a  six-cylinder,  Peter." 

"Sho  do,  black  man ;  but  He  's  jes  about  de  onlies* 
thing  on  uth  'at  do." 

"Well,  I  don'  know,"  came  a  troubled  rejoinder. 
"Thaiuh  's  de  debbil,  ketchin'  mo'  niggers  nowadays 
dan  he  do  white  men,  I  'fo'  Gawd  b'liebes." 

"Well,  dat  's  because  dey  is  so  many  mo'"  niggers 
dan  dey  is  white  folks,"  put  in  a  philosopher. 

"Whut  you  say  'bout  dat,  Brudder  Peter?"  inquired 
the  Persimmon,  seriously.  None  of  this  discussion 
was  either  derision  or  burlesque.  None  of  the  crowd 
had  the  slightest  feeling  that  these  questions  were  not 


254  BIRTHRIGHT 

just  as  practical  and  important  as  the  suggestion  that 
they  all  go  to  work. 

When  Peter  realized  how  their  ignorant  and  undis- 
ciplined thoughts  flowed  off  into  absurdities,  and  that 
they  were  entirely  unaware  of  it,  it  brought  a  great 
depression  to  his  heart.  He  held  up  a  hand  with  an 
earnestness  that  caught  their  vagrant  attention. 

"Listen!"  he  pleaded.  "Can't  you  see  how  much 
there  is  for  us  black  folks  to  do,  and  what  little  we 
have  done  ?" 

"Sho  is  a  lot  to  do;  we  admits  dat,"  said  Bluegum 
Frakes.  "But  whut  's  de  use  doin'  hit  ef  we  kin  man- 
age to  shy  roun'  some  o'  dat  wuck  an'  keep  on  libin' 
anyhow,  specially  wid  wages  so  high?" 

The  question  stopped  Peter.  Neither  his  own 
thoughts,  nor  any  bo'ok  that  he  had  ever  read  nor  any 
lecture  that  he  had  heard  ever  attempted  to  explain  the 
enormous  creative  urge  which  is  felt  by  every  noble 
mind,  and  which,  indeed,  is  shared  to  some  extent  by 
every  human  creature.  Put  to  it  like  that,  Siner  con- 
cocted a  sort  of  allegory,  telling  of  a  negro  who  was 
shiftless  in  the  summer  and  suffered  want  in  the  winter, 
and  applied  it  to  the  present  high  wage  and  to  the  low 
wage  that  was  coming ;  but  in  his  heart  Peter  knew  such 
utilitarianism  was  not  the  true  reason  at  all.  Men 
do  not  weave  tapestries  to  warm  themselves,  or  build 
temples  to  keep  the  rain  away. 

The  brown  man  passed  on  around  the  corner,  out  of 
the  faint  warmth  of  the  sunshine  and  away  from  the 


BIRTHRIGHT  255 

empty  and  endless  arguments  which  his  coming  had 
provoked  among  the  negroes. 

The  futile  ending  of  his  first  adventure  surprised 
Peter.  He  walked  uncertainly  up  the  business  street 
of  the  village,  hardly  knowing  where  to  turn  next. 

Cold  weather  had  driven  the  merchants  indoors,  and 
the  thoroughfare  was  quite  deserted  except  for  a  few 
hogs  rooting  among  the  refuse  heaps  piled  in  front  of 
the  stores.  It  was  not  a  pleasant  sight,  and  it  repelled 
Peter  all  the  more  because  he  was  accustomed  to  the 
antiseptic  look  of  a  Northern  city.  He  walked  up  to 
the  third  door  from  the  corner,  when  a  buzz  of  voices 
brought  him  to  a  standstill  and  finally  persuaded  him 
inside. 

At  the  back  end  of  a  badly  lighted  store  a  circle  of 
white  men  and  boys  had  formed  around  an  old- 
fashioned,  egg-shaped  stove.  Near  by,  on  some  meal- 
bags,  sat  two  negroes,  one  of  whom  wore  a  broad  grin, 
the  other,  a  funny,  sheepish  look. 

The  white  men  were  teasing  the  latter  negro  about 
having  gone  to  jail  for  selling  a  mortgaged  cow.  The 
men  went  about  their  fun-making  leisurely,  knowing 
quite  well  the  negro  could  not  get  angry  or  make  any 
retort  or  leave  the  store,  all  of  these  methods  of  self- 
defense  being  ruled  out  by  custom. 

''You  must  have  forgot  your  cow  was  mortgaged, 
Bob." 

"No-o-o,  suh ;  I — I — I  did  n't  fuhgit,"  drawling  his 
vowels  to  a  prodigious  length. 


256  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Did  n't  you  know  you  'd  get  into  trouble?" 

"No-o-o,  suh." 

"Know  it  now,  don't  you?" 

"Ya-a-s,  suh." 

"Have  a  good  time  in  jail,  Bob?" 

"Ya-a-s,  suh.  Shot  cra-a-aps  nearly  all  de  time 
tull  de  jailer  broke  hit  up." 

"Would  n't  he  let  you  shoot  any  more?" 

"No-o-o,  suh;  not  after  he  won  all  our  money." 
Here  Bob  flung  up  his  head,  poked  out  his  lips  like  a 
bugle,  and  broke  into  a  grotesque,  "Hoo!  hoo!  hoo!" 
It  was  such  an  absurd  laugh,  and  Bob's  tale  had  come 
to  such  an  absurd  denouement,  that  the  white  men 
roared,  and  shuffled  their  feet  on  the  flared  base  of  the 
stove.  Some  spat  in  or  near  a  box  filled  with  saw- 
dust, and  betrayed  other  nervous  signs  of  satisfac- 
tion. When  a  man  so  spat,  he  stopped  laughing 
abruptly,  straightened  his  face,  and  stared  emptily  at 
the  rusty  stove  until  further  inquisition  developed  some 
other  preposterous  escapade  in  Bob's  jail  career. 

The  merchant,  looking  up  at  one  of  these  intermis- 
sions, saw  Peter  standing  at  his  counter.  He  came  out 
of  the  circle  and  asked  Peter  what  he  wanted.  The 
mulatto  bought  a  package  of  soda  and  went  out. 

The  chill  north  wind  smelled  clean  after  the  odors 
of  the  store.  Peter  stood  with  his  package  of  soda, 
breathing  deeply,  looking  up  and  down  the  street,  won- 
dering what  to  do  next.  Without  much  precision  of 
purpose,  he  walked  diagonally  across  the  street,  north- 


BIRTHRIGHT  257 

ward,  toward  a  large  faded  sign  that  read,  *'Killibrew's 
Grocery."  A  little  later  Peter  entered  a  big,  rather 
clean  store  which  smelled  of  spices,  coffee,  and  a  faint 
dash  of  decayed  potatoes.  Mr.  Killibrew  himself,  a 
big,  rotund  man,  with  a  round  head  of  prematurely 
white  hair,  was  visible  in  a  little  glass  office  at  the  end 
of  his  store.  Even  through  the  glazed  partition  Peter 
could  see  Mr.  Killibrew  smiling  as  he  sat  comfortably 
at  his  desk.  Indeed,  the  grocer's  chief  assets  were  a 
really  expansive  friendliness  and  a  pleasant,  easily 
provoked  laughter. 

He  was  fifty-two  years  old,  and  had  been  in  the 
grocery  business  since  he  was  fifteen.  He  had  never 
been  to  school  at  all,  but  had  learned  bookkeeping, 
business .  mathematics,  salesmanship,  and  the  wisdom 
of  the  market-place  from  his  store,  from  other  mer- 
chants, and  from  the  drummers  who  came  every  week 
with  their  samples  and  their  worldly  wisdom.  These 
drummers  were,  almost  to  a  man,  very  sincere  friends 
of  Mr.  Killibrew,  and  not  infrequently  they  would 
write  the  grocer  from  the  city,  or  send  him  telegrams, 
advising  him  to  buy  this  or  to  unload  that,  according 
to  the  exigencies  of  the  market.  As  a  result  of  this 
he  was  very  well  off  indeed,  and  all  because  he  was  a 
friendly,  agreeable  sort  of  man. 

The  grocer  heard  Peter  enter  and  started  to  come 
out  of  his  office,  when  Peter  stopped  him  and  asked  if 
he  might  speak  with  him  alone. 

The  white-haired  man  with  the  pink,  good-natured 


258  BIRTHRIGHT 

face  stood  looking  at  Peter  with  rather  a  questioning 
but  pleasant  expression. 

"Why,  certainly,  certainly."  He  turned  back  to  the 
swivel-chair  at  his  desk,  seated  himself,  and  twisted 
about  on  Peter  as  he  entered.  Mr.  Killibrew  did  not 
offer  Peter  a  seat, — that  would  have  been  an  infrac- 
tion of  Hooker's  Bend  custom, — but  he  sat  leaning 
back,  evidently  making  up  his  mind  to  refuse  Peter 
credit,  which  he  fancied  the  mulatto  would  ask  for, 
and  yet  do  it  pleasantly. 

'T  was  wondering,  Mr.  Killibrew,"  began  Peter, 
feeling  his  way  along,  "I  was  wondering  if  you  would 
mind  talking  over  a  little  matter  with  me.  It 's  con- 
sidered a  delicate  subject,  I  believe,  but  I  thought  a 
frank  talk  would  help." 

During  the  natural  pauses  of  Peter's  explanation 
Mr.  Killibrew  kept  up  a  genial  series  of  nods  and 
ejaculations. 

"Certainly,  Peter.  I  don't  see  why,  Peter.  I  'm 
sure  it  will  help,  Peter." 

"I  'd  like  to  talk  frankly  about  the  relations  of  our 
two  races  in  the  South,  in  Hooker's  Bend." 

The  grocer  stopped  his  running  accompaniment  of 
affirmations  and  looked  steadfastly  at  Peter.  Pres- 
ently he  seemed  to  solve  some  question  and  broke  into 
a  pleasant  laugh. 

"Now,  Peter,  if  this  is  some  political  shenanigan,  I 
must  tell  you  I  'm  a  Democrat.  Besides  that,  I  don't 
care  a  straw  about  politics.     I  vote,  and  that 's  all." 


BIRTHRIGHT  259 

Peter  put  down  the  suspicion  that  he  was  on  a  politi- 
cal errand. 

"Not  that  at  all,  Mr.  Killibrew.  It 's  a  question  of 
the  white  race  and  the  black  race.  The  particular  fea- 
ture I  am  working  on  is  the  wages  paid  to  cooks." 

*T  did  n't  know  you  were  a  cook,"  interjected  the 
grocer  in  surprise. 

"I  am  not." 

Mr.  Killibrew  looked  at  Peter,  thought  intensely  for 
a  few  moments,  and  came  to  an  unescapable  conclu- 
sion. 

"You  don't  mean  you  've  formed  a  cook's  union 
here  in  Hooker's  Bend,  Peter!"  he  cried,  immensely 
amazed. 

"Not  at  all.  It's  this,"  clarified  Peter.  "It  may 
seem  trivial,  but  it  illustrates  the  principle  I  'm  trying 
to  get  at.     Does  n't  your  cook  carry  away  cold  food?" 

It  required  perhaps  four  seconds  for  the  merchant 
to  stop  his  speculations  on  what  Peter  had  come  for 
and  adjust  his  mind  to  the  question. 

"Why,  yes,  I  suppose  so,"  he  agreed,  very  much  at 
sea.  "I — I  never  caught  up  with  her."  He  laughed 
a  pleasant,  puzzled  laugh.  "Of  course  she  does  n't 
come  around  and  show  me  what  she 's  making  off 
with.     Why?" 

"Well,  it 's  this.  Would  n't  you  prefer  to  give  your 
cook  a  certain  cash  payment  instead  of  having  her  tak- 
ing uncertain  amounts  of  your  foodstuffs  and  wearing 
apparel  ?" 


26o  BIRTHRIGHT 

The  merchant  leaned  forward  in  his  chair. 

"Did  old  Becky  Davis  send  you  to  me  with  any  such 
proposition  as  that,  Peter?" 

"No,  not  at  all.  But,  Mr.  Killibrew,  would  n't  you 
like  better  and  more  trustworthy  servants  as  cooks,  as 
farm-hands,  chauffeurs,  stable-boys?  You  see,  you 
and  your  children  and  your  children's  children  are 
going  to  have  to  depend  on  negro  labor,  as  far  as  we 
can  see,  to  the  end  of  time." 

"We-e-ell,  yes,"  admitted  Mr.  Killibrew,  who  was 
not  accustomed  to  considering  the  end  of  time. 

"Would  n't  it  be  better  to  have  honest,  self-respect- 
ing help  than  dishonest  help  ?'* 

"Certainly." 

"Then  let 's  think  about  cooks.  How  can  one  hope 
to  rear  an  honest,  self-respecting  citizenry  as  long  as 
the  mothers  of  the  race  are  compelled  to  resort  to 
thievery  to  patch  out  an  insufficient  wage  ?" 

"Why,  I  don't  suppose  niggers  ever  will  be  honest," 
admitted  the  grocer,  very  frankly.  "You  naturally 
don't  trust  a  nigger.  If  you  credit  one  for  a  dime,  the 
next  time  he  has  any  money  he  '11  go  trade  somewhere 
else."  The  grocer  broke  into  his  contagious  laugh. 
"Do  you  know  how  I  've  built  up  my  business  here, 
Peter?  By  never  trusting  a  nigger."  Mr.  Killibrew 
continued  his  pleased  chuckle.  "Yes,  I  get  the  whole 
cash  trade  of  the  niggers  in  Hooker's  Bend  by  never 
cheating  one  and  never  trusting  one." 

The  grocer  leaned  back  in  his  squeaking  chair  and 


BIRTHRIGHT  261 

looked  out  through  the  glass  partition,  over  the  brightly 
colored  packages  that  lined  his  shelves  from  floor  to 
ceiling.  All  that  prosperity  had  come  about  through 
a  policy  of  honesty  and  distrust.  It  was  something  to 
be  proud  of. 

''Now,  let  me  see,"  he  proceeded,  recurring  pleas- 
antly to  what  he  recalled  of  Peter's  original  proposi- 
tion: ''Aunt  Becky  sent  you  here  to  tell  me  if  I'd 
raise  her  pay,  she  'd  stop  stealin'  and — and  raise  some 
honest  children."  Mr.  Killibrew  threw  back  his  head 
and  broke  into  loud,  jelly-like  laughter.  "Why,  don't 
you  know,  Peter,  she  's  an  old  liar.  If  I  gave  her  a 
hundred  a  week,  she  'd  steal.  And  children !  Why, 
the  old  humbug !  She  's  too  old ;  she  's  had  her  crop. 
And,  besides  all  that,  I  don't  mind  what  the  old 
woman  takes.  It  is  n't  much.  She 's  a  good  old 
darky,  faithful  as  a  dog."  He  arose  from  his  swivel- 
chair  briskly  and  floated  Peter  out  before  him. 

"Tell  her,  if  she  wants  a  raise,"  he  concluded  heart- 
ily, "and  can't  pinch  enough  out  of  my  kitchen  and 
the  two  dollars  I  pay  her — tell  her  to  come  to  me, 
straight  out,  and  I  '11  give  her  more,  and  she  can  pinch 
more." 

Mr.  Killibrew  moved  down  the  aisle  of  his  store 
between  fragrant  barrels  and  boxes,  laughing  mellowly 
at  old  Aunt  Becky's  ruse,  as  he  saw  it.  As  he  turned 
Peter  out,  he  invited  him  to  come  again  when  he  needed 
anything  in  the  grocery  fine. 

And  he  was  so  pleasant,  hearty,  and  sincere  in  his 


262  BIRTHRIGHT 

friendliness  toward  both  Peter  and  old  Aunt  Becky 
that  Peter,  even  amid  the  complete  side-tracking  and 
derailing  of  his  mission,  decided  that  if  ever  he  did 
have  occasion  to  purchase  any  groceries,  he  would  do 
his  trading  at  this  market  ruled  by  an  absolute  honesty 
with,  and  a  complete  distrust  in,  his  race. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  Killibrew  interview  Peter 
instinctively  felt  that  he  had  just  about  touched  the 
norm  of  Hooker's  Bend.  The  village  might  contain 
men  who  would  dive  a  little  deeper  into  the  race  ques- 
tion with  Peter;  assuredly,  there  would  be  hundreds 
who  would  not  dive  so  deep.  Mr.  Killibrew's  attitude 
on  the  race  question  turned  on  how  to  hold  the  negro 
patronage  of  the  village  to  his  grocery.  It  was  not 
an  abstract  question  at  all,  but  a  concrete  fact,  which 
he  had  worked  out  to  his  own  satisfaction.  With  Mr. 
Killibrew,  with  all  Hooker's  Bend,  there  was  no  negro 
question. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

WHEN  Peter  Siner  started  on  his  indefinite  er- 
rand among  the  village  stores  he  believed  it 
would  require  much  tact  and  diplomacy  to  discuss  the 
race  question  without  offense.  To  his  surprise,  no 
precaution  was  necessary.  Everybody  agreed  at 
once  that  the  South  would  be  benefited  by  a  more 
trustworthy  labor,  that  if  the  negroes  were  trust- 
worthy they  could  be  paid  more;  but  nobody  agreed 
that  if  negroes  were  paid  more  they  would  become 
more  trustworthy.  The  prevailing  dictum  was,  A 
nigger  's  a  nigger. 

As  Peter  came  out  into  the  shabby  little  street  of 
Hooker's  Bend  discouragement  settled  upon  him.  He 
felt  as  if  he  had  come  squarely  against  some  blank 
stone  wall  that  no  amount  of  talking  could  budge. 
The  black  man  would  have  to  change  his  psychology 
or  remain  where  he  was,  a  creature  of  poverty,  hovels, 
and  dirt;  but  amid  such  surroundings  he  could  not 
change  his  psychology. 

The  point  of  these  unhappy  conclusions  somehow 
turned  against  Cissie  Dildine.  The  mulatto  became 
aware  that  his  whole  crusade  had  been  undertaken  in 

263 


A 


A 


264  BIRTHRIGHT 

behalf  of  the  octoroon.  Everything  the  merchants 
said  against  negroes  became  accusations  against  Cissie 
in  a  sharp  personal  way.  ''A  nigger  is  a  nigger";  ''A 
thief  is  a  thief" ;  *'She  would  n't  quit  stealing  if  I  paid 
her  a  hundred  a  week."  Every  stroke  had  fallen 
squarely  on  Cissie's  shoulders.  A  nigger,  a  thief ;  and 
she  would  never  be  otherwise. 

It  was  all  so  hopeless,  so  unchangeable,  that  Peter 
walked  down  the  bleak  street  unutterably  depressed. 
There  was  nothing  he  could  do.  The  situation  was 
static.  It  seemed  best  that  he  should  go  away  North 
and  -save  his  own  skin.  It  was  impossible  to  take 
Cissie  with  him.  Perhaps  in  time  he  would  come  to 
forget  her,  and  in  so  doing  he  would  forget  the  pau- 
perism and  pettinesses  of  all  the  black  folk  of  the  South. 
Because  through  Cissie  Peter  saw  the  whole  negro 
race.  She  was  flexuous  and  passionate,  kindly  and 
loving,  childish  and  naively  wise;  on  occasion  she 
could  falsify  and  steal,  and  in  the  depth  of  her  Peter 
sensed  a  profound  capacity  for  fury  and  violence. 
For  all  her  precise  English,  she  was  untamed,  perhaps 
untamable. 

Cissie  was  a  far  cry  from  the  sort  of  woman  Peter 
imagined  he  wanted  for  a  mate;  yet  he  knew  that  if 
he  stayed  on  in  Hooker's  Bend,  seeing  her,  desiring 
her,  with  her  luxury  mocking  the  loneliness  of  the  old 
Renfrew  manor,  presently  he  would  marry  her. 
Already  he  had  had  his  little  irrational  moments  when 
it  seemed  to  him  that  Cissie  herself  was  quite  fine  and 


\ 


BIRTHRIGHT  265 

worthy    and    that    her    peculations    were    something 
foreign  and  did  not  pertain  to  her  at  all. 

He  would  better  go  North.  It  would  be  safer  up 
there.  No  doubt  he  could  find  another  colored  girl 
in  the  North.  The  thought  of  fondling  any  other 
woman  filled  Peter  with  a  sudden,  sharp  repulsion. 
However,  Peter  was  wise.  He  knew  he  would  get 
over  that  in  time. 

With  this  plan  in  mind,  Peter  set  out  down  the  street, 
intending  to  cross  the  Big  Hill  at  the  church,  walk 
over  to  his  mother's  shack,  and  pack  his  few  belongings 
preparatory  to  going  away. 

It  was  not  a  heroic  retreat.  The  conversation  which 
he  had  had  with  his  college  friend  Farquhar  recurred 
to  Peter.  Farquhar  had  tried  to  persuade  Peter  to 
remain  North  and  take  a  position  in  a  system  of  gar- 
ages out  of  Chicago. 

*'You  can  do  nothing  in  the  South,  Siner,"  assured 
Farquhar ;  "your  countrymen  must  stand  on  their  own 
feet,  just  as  you  are  doing." 

Peter  had  argued  the  vast  majority  of  the  negroes 
had  no  chance,  but  Farquhar  pressed  the  point  that 
Peter  himself  disproved  his  own  statement.     At  the 
time  Peter  felt  there  was  an  clench  in  the  Illinoisan's 
logic,  but  he  was  not  skilful  enough  to  analyze  it. 
Now  the  mulatto  began  to  see  that  Farquhar  was  right.  | 
The  negro  question  was  a  matter  of  individual  initia-; 
tive.     Critics  forgot  that  a  race  was  composed  of  in-* 
dividual  men. 


266  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter  had  an  uneasy  sense  that  this  was  exceedingly 
thin  logic,  a  mere  smoke  screen  behind  which  he  meant 
to  retreat  back  up  North.  He  walked  on  down  the 
poor  village  street,  turning  it  over  and  over  in  his  mind, 
affirming  it  positively  to  himself,  after  the  manner  of 
uneasy  consciences. 

An  unusual  stir  among  the  negroes  on  Hobbett's 
corner  caught  Peter's  attention  and  broke  into  his 
chain  of  thought.  Half  a  dozen  negroes  stood  on  the 
corner,  staring  down  toward  the  white  church.  A 
black  boy  suddenly  started  running  across  the  street, 
and  disappeared  among  the  stores  on  the  other  side. 
Peter  caught  glimpses  of  him  among  the  wretched 
alleyways  and  vacant  lots  that  lie  east  of  Main  Street. 
The  boy  was  still  running  toward  Niggertown. 

By  this  time  Peter  was  just  opposite  the  watchers 
on  the  corner.  He  lifted  his  voice  and  asked  them 
the  matter,  but  at  the  moment  they  began  an  excited 
talking,  and  no  one  heard  him. 

Jim  Pink  Staggs  jerked  off  his  fur  cap,  made  a 
gesture,  contorted  his  long,  black  face  into  a  caricature 
of  fright,  and  came  loping  across  the  street,  looking 
back  over  his  shoulder,  mimicking  a  run  for  life. 
His  mummery  set  his  audience  howling. 

The  buffoon  would  have  collided  with  Peter,  but  the 
mulatto  caught  Jim  Pink  by  the  arm  and  shoulder, 
brought  him  to  a  halt,  and  at  the  same  time  helped 
him  keep  his  feet. 

To  Peter's  inquiry  what  was  the  matter,  the  black 


BIRTHRIGHT  267 

fellow  whirled  and  blared  out  loudly,  for  the  sake  of 
his  audience: 

"  To'  Gawd,  nigger,  I  sho  thought  Mr.  Bobbs  had 
me !"  and  he  writhed  his  face  into  an  idiotic  grimace. 

The  audience  reeled  about  in  their  mirth.  Because 
with  negroes,  as  with  white  persons,  two  thirds  of 
humor  is  in  the  reputation,  and  Jim  Pink  was  of  pro- 
digious repute. 

Peter  walked  along  with  him  patiently,  because  he 
knew  that  until  they  were  out  of  ear-shot  of  the  crowd 
there  was  no  way  of  getting  a  sensible  answer  out  of 
Jim  Pink. 

"Where  are  you  going?'*  he  asked  presently. 

"Thought  I  'd  step  over  to  Niggertown."  Jim  Pink's 
humorous  air  was  still  upon  him. 

"What 's  doing  over  there  ?  What  were  the  boys 
raising  such  a  hullabaloo  about?" 

"Such  me.'* 

"Why  did  that  boy  go  running  across  like  that?" 

Jim  Pink  rolled  his  eyes  on  Peter  with  a  peculiar 
look. 

"Reckon  he  mus'  'a'  wanted  to  git  on  t'other  side 
o'  town." 

Peter  flattered  the  Punchinello  by  smiling  a  little. 

"Come,  Jim  Pink,  what  do  you  know?"  he  asked. 
The  magician  poked  out  his  huge  lips. 

"Mr.  Bobbs  turn  acrost  by  de  church,  over  de  Big 
Hill.     Da'  's  always  a  ba-ad  sign." 

Peter's  brief  interest  in  the  matter  flickered  out. 


268  BIRTHRIGHT 

Another  arrest  for  some  niggerish  peccadillo.  The 
history  of  Niggertown  was  one  long  series  of  petty 
offenses,  petty  raids,  and  petty  punishments.  Peter 
would  be  glad  to  get  well  away  from  such  a  place. 

*Think  I  '11  go  North,  Jim  Pink,"  remarked  Peter, 
chiefly  to  keep  up  a  friendly  conversation  with  his 
companion. 

*'Whut-chu  goin'   to  do  up  thaiuh?" 

"Take  a  position  in  a  system  of  garages.'* 

"A  position  is  a  job  wid  a  white  color  on  it,"  defined 
the  minstrel.     ''Whut  you  goin'  to  do  wid  Cissie?" 

Peter  looked   around  at  the    foolish   face. 

"With  Cissie?— Cissie  Dildine?" 

"Uh  huh." 

"Why,  what  makes  you  think  I  'm  going  to  do 
anything  with  Cissie?" 

"M-m,  visitin'  roun'."  The  fool  flung  his  face  into 
a  grimace,  and  dropped  it  as  one  might  shake  out  a 
sack. 

Peter  watched  the  contortion  uneasily. 

"What   do  you  mean — visiting   around?" 

"Diff'nt  folks  go  visitin'  roun'; 
Some  goes  up  an'  some  goes  down." 

Apparently  Jim  Pink  had  merely  quoted  a  few  words 
from  a  poem  he  knew.  He  stared  at  the  green-black 
depth  of  the  glade,  which  set  in  about  half-way  up 
the  hill  they  were  climbing. 

"Ef  this  weather  don'  ever  break,"  he  observed 
sagely,  "we  sho  am  in  fuh  a  dry  spelU'* 


BIRTHRIGHT  269 

Peter  did  not  pursue  t,he  totpic  of  the  weather.  He 
climbed  the  hill  in  silence,  wondering  just  what  the 
buffoon  meant.  He  suspected  he  was  hinting  at 
Cissie's  visit  to  his  room.  However,  he  did  not  dare 
ask  any  questions  or  press  the  point  in  any  manner, 
lest  he  commit  himself. 

The  minstrel  had  succeeded  in  making  Peter's  walk 
very  uncomfortable,  as  somehow  he  always  did. 
Peter  went  on  thinking  about  the  matter.  If  Jim  Pink 
knew  of  Cissie's  visit,  all  Niggertown  knew  it.  No 
woman's  reputation,  nobody's  shame  or  misery  or 
even  life,  would  stand  between  Jim  Pink  and  what  he 
considered  a  joke.  The  buffoon  was  the  cruelest  thing 
in  this  world — a  man  who  thought  himself  a  wit. 

Peter  could  imagine  all  the  endless  tweaks  to  Cis- 
sie's pride  Niggertown  would  give  the  octoroon.  She 
had  asked  Peter  to  marry  her  and  had  been  refused. 
She  had  humbled  herself  for  naught.  That  was  the 
very  tar  of  shame.  Peter  knew  that  in  the  moral 
categories  of  Niggertown  Cissie  would  suffer  more 
from  such  a  rebuff  than  if  she  had  lied  or  committed 
theft  and  adultery  every  day  in  the  calendar.  She 
had  been  refused  marriage.  All  the  folk- ways  of 
Niggertown  were  utterly  topsyturvy.  It  was  a  crazy- 
house  filled  with  the  most  grotesque  moral  measures. 

It  seemed  to  Peter  as  he  entered  the  cedar-glade 
that  he  had  lost  all  sympathy  with  this  people  from 
which  he  had  sprung.  He  looked  upon  them  as 
strange,  incomprehensible  beings,  just  as  a  man  will 


270  BIRTHRIGHT 

forget  his  own  childhood  and  look  upon  children  as 
strange,  incomprehensible  little  creatures.  In  the 
midst  of  his  thoughts  he  heard  himself  saying  to  Jim 
Pink: 

*T  suppose  it  is  as  dusty  as  ever." 

"Dustier  'an  ever,"  assured  Jim  Pink. 

Apparently  their  conversation  had  recurred  to  the 
weather,  after  all. 

A  chill  silence  encompassed  the  glade.  The  path 
the  negroes  followed  wound  this  way  and  that  among 
reddish  boulders,  between  screens  of  intergrown 
cedars,  and  over  a  bronze  mat  of  needles.  Their  steps 
were  noiseless.  The  odor  of  the  cedars  and  the  temple- 
like stillness  brought  to  Peter's  mind  the  night  of  his 
mother's  death.  It  seemed  to  him  a  long  time  since 
he  had  come  running  through  the  glade  after  a  doctor, 
and  yet,  by  a  queer  distortion  of  his  sense  of  time,  his 
mother's  death  and  burial  bulked  in  his  past  as  if  it 
had  occurred  yesterday. 

There  was  no  sound  in  the  glade  to  disturb  Peter's 
thoughts  except  a  murmur  of  human  voices  from  some 
of  the  innumerable  privacies  of  the  place,  and  the 
occasional  chirp  of  a  waxwing  busy  over  clusters  of 
cedar-balls. 

It  had  been  five  weeks  and  a  day  since  Caroline  Siner 
died.  Five  weeks  and  a  day;  his  mother's  death  was 
drifting  away  into  the  mystery  and  oblivion  of  the 
past.  Likewise,  twenty-five  years  of  his  own  life  were 
completed  and  gone. 


BIRTHRIGHT  271 

A  procession  of  sad,  wistful  thoughts  trailed  through 
Peter's  brain  :  his  mother,  and  Ida  May,  and  now  Cissie. 
It  seemed  to  Peter  that  all  any  woman  had  ever  brought 
him  was  wistfulness  and  sadness.  His  mother  had 
been  jealous,  and  instead  of  the  great  happiness  he 
had  expected,  his  home  life  with  her  had  turned  out 
a  series  of  small  perplexities  and  pains.  Before  that 
was  Ida  May,  and  now  here  was  her  younger  sister. 
Peter  wondered  if  any  man  ever  reached  the  peace 
and  happiness  foreshadowed  in  his  dream  of  a  woman. 

A  voice  calling  his  name  checked  Peter's  stride 
mechanically,  and  caused  him  to  look  about  with  the 
slight  bewilderment  of  a  man  aroused  from  a  reverie. 

At  the  first  sound,  however,  Jim  Pink  became  sud- 
denly alert.  He  took  three  strides  ahead  of  Peter, 
and  as  he  went  he  whispered  over  his  shoulder: 

"Beat  it,  nigger!  beat  it!" 

The  mulatto  recognized  one  of  Jim  Pink's  endless 
stupid  attempts  at  comedy.  It  would  be  precisely  Jim 
Pink's  idea  of  a  jest  to  give  Peter  a  Httle  start.  As 
the  mulatto  stood  looking  about  among  the  cedars  for 
the  person  who  had  called  his  name,  it  amazed  him 
that  Jim  Pink  could  be  so  utterly  insane;  that  he 
performed  some  buffoonery  instantly,  by  reflex  action 
as  it  were,  upon  the  slightest  provocation.  It  was 
almost  a  mania  with  Jim  Pink;  it  verged  on  the 
pathological. 

The  clown,  however,  was  pressing  his  joke.     He 


2^2  BIRTHRIGHT 

was  pretending  great  fear,  and  was  shouting  out  in 
his  loose  minstrel  voice: 

**Hey,  don'  shoot  down  dis  way,  black  man,  tull  I 
makes  my  exit!"  And  a  voice,  rich  with  contempt, 
called  back : 

*'You  needn't  be  skeered,  you  fool  rabbit  of  a 
nigger !" 

Peter  turned  with  a  qualm.  Quite  close  to  him, 
and  in  another  direction  from  which  he  had  been  look- 
ing, stood  Tump  Pack.  The  ex-soldier  looked  the 
worse  for  wear  after  his  jail  sentence.  His  uniform 
was  frayed,  and  over  his  face  lay  a  grayish  cast  that 
marks  negroes  in  bad  condition.  At  his  side,  attached 
by  a  belt  and  an  elaborate  shoulder  holster,  hung  a 
big  army  revolver,  while  on  the  greasy  lapel  of  his 
coat  was  pinned  his  military  medal  for  exceptional 
bravery  on  the  field  of  battle. 

"Been  lookin'  fuh  you  fuh  some  time,  Peter,"  he 
stated  grimly. 

Peter  considered  the  formidable  figure  with  a  queer 
sensation.  He  tried  to  take  Tump's  appearance  casu- 
ally;  he  tried  to  maintain  an  air  of  ordinariness. 

**Did  n't  know  you  were  back." 

"Yeah,  I 's  back." 

"Have  you — been  looking   for  me?" 

"Yeah." 

"Didn't  you  know  where  I  was  staying?" 

"Co'se  I  did;  up  'mong  de  white  folks.  You  know 
day  don'  'low  no  shootin'  an'  killin'  'mong  de  white 


'Naw   yuh    don't,"    he    warned    sharply.     "You    turn    roun'    an' 
march  on  to  niggertown" 


BIRTHRIGHT  273 

folks."  He  drew  his  pistol  from  the  holster  with  the 
address  of  an  expert  marksman. 

Peter  stood,  with  a  quickening  pulse,  studying  his 
assailant.  The  glade,  the  air,  the  sunshine,  seemed 
suddenly  drawn  to  a  tension,  likely  to  break  into  violent 
commotion.  His  abrupt  danger  brought  Peter  to  a 
feeling  of  lightness  and  power.  A  quiver  went  along 
his  spine.  His  nostrils  widened  unconsciously  as  he 
calculated  a  leap  and  a  blow  at  Tump's  gun. 

The  soldier  took  a  step  backward,  at  the  same  time 
bringing  the  barrel  to  a  ready. 

"Naw  you  don't,"  he  warned  sharply.  "You  turn 
roun'  an'  march  on  to  Niggertown." 

"What  for?"  Peter  still  tried  to  be  casual,  but 
his  voice  held  new  overtones. 

"Because,  nigger,  I  means  to^  drap  you  right  on  de 
Main  Street  o'  Niggertown,  'fo'  all  dem  niggers  whut  's 
been  a-raggin'  me  'bout  you  an'  Cissie.  I 's  gwine 
show  dem  fool  niggers  I  don'  take  no  f umi-diddles  off 'n 
nobody." 

"Tump,"  gasped  Jim  Pink,  in  a  husky  voice,  "you 
oughtn't  shoot  Peter;  he  mammy  jes  daid." 

"  'En  she  won'  worry  none.  Turn  roun',  Peter, 
an'  when  I  says,  'March,'  you  march."  He  leveled 
his  pistol.     "'Tention!     Rat  about  face!     March!" 

Peter  turned  and  moved  off  down  the  noiseless  path, 
walking  with  the  stiff  gait  of  a  man  who  expects  a 
terriffic  blow  from  behind  at  any  instant. 

The  mulatto  walked  twenty  or  more  paces  amid  a 


274  BIRTHRIGHT 

confusion  of  self -protective  impulses.  He  thought  of 
whirling  on  Tump  even  at  this  late  date.  He  thought 
of  darting  behind  a  cedar,  but  he  knew  the  man  be- 
hind him  was  an  expert  shot,  and  something  funda- 
mental in  the  brown  man  forbade  his  getting  himself 
killed  while  running  away.  It  was  too  undignified  a 
death. 

Presently  he  surprised  himself  by  calling  over  his 
shoulder,  as  a  sort  of  complaint: 

"How  came  you  with  the  pistol.  Tump?  Thought 
it  was  against  the  law^  to  carry  one." 

"You  kin  ca*y  'em  ef  you  don'  keep  'em  hid,"  ex- 
plained the  ex-soldier  in  a  wooden  voice.  "Mr.  Bobbs 
tol'  me  dat  when  he  guv  my  gun  back." 

The  irony  of  the  thing  caught  Peter,  for  the  author- 
ities to  arrest  Tump  not  because  he  was  trying  to  kill 
Peter,  but  because  he  went  about  his  first  attempt  in 
an  illegal  manner.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  the 
mulatto  felt  that  contempt  for  a  white  mait^s  technical- 
ities that  flavors  every  negro's  thoughts.  Here  for 
thirty  days  his  life  had  been  saved  by  a  technical  law 
of  the  white  man;  at  the  end  of  the  thirty  days,  by 
another  technical  law,  Tump  was  set  at  liberty  and 
allowed  to  carry  a  weapon,  in  a  certain  way,  to  murder 
him.  It  was  grotesque ;  it  was  absurd.  It  filled  Peter 
with  a  sudden  violent  questioning  of  the  whole  white 
regime.  His  thoughts  danced  along  in  peculiar  excite- 
ment. 

At  the  turn  of  the  hill  the  trio  came  in  sight  of  the 


BIRTHRIGHT  275 

squalid  semicircle  of  Niggertown.  Here  and  there 
from  a  tumbledown  chimney  a  feather  of  pale  wood 
smoke  lifted  into  the  chill  sunshine.  The  sight  of 
the  houses  brought  Peter  a  sharp  realization  that  his 
life  would  end  in  the  curving  street  beneath  him.  A 
shock  at  the  incomprehensible  brevity  of  his  life  rushed 
over  him.  Just  to  that  street,  just  as  far  as  the  curve, 
and  his  legs  were  swinging  along,  carrying  him  for- 
ward at  an  even  gait. 

All  at  once  he  began  talking,  arguing.  He  tried  to 
speak  at  an  ordinary  tempo,  but  his  words  kept  edging 
on  faster  and  faster: 

"Tump,  I  'm  not  going  to  marry  Cissie  Dildine." 

"I  knows  you  ain't,  Peter." 

"I  mean,  if  you  let  me  alone,  I  did  n't  mean  to." 

'T  ain't  goin'  to  let  you  alone." 

"Tump,  we  had  already  decided  not  to  marry." 

After  a  short  pause  Tump  said  in  a  slightly  different 
tone : 

"'Pears  lak  you  don'  haf  to  ma'y  her — comin'  to  yo' 
room." 

A  queer  sinking  came  over  the  mulatto.  "Listen, 
Tump,  I — we — in  my  room — we  simply  talked,  that 's 
all.  She  came  to  tell  me  she  was  goin  away.  I — I 
didn't  harm  her.  Tump."  Peter  swallowed.  He 
despaired  of  being  believed. 

But  his  defense  only  infuriated  the  soldier.  He 
suddenly   broke   into  violent  profanity. 

"Hot  damn  you!  shut  yo  black  mouf !  Whut  I  keer 


276  BIRTHRIGHT 

whut-chu  done !  You  weaned  her  away  f um  me.  She 
won't  speak  to  me !  She  won't  look  at  me !"  A  sud- 
den insanity  of  rage  seized  Tump.  He  poured  on  his 
victim  every  oath  and  obscenity  he  had  raked  out  of  the 
whole  army. 

Strangely  enough,  the  gunman's  outbreak  brought 
a  kind  of  relief  to  Peter  Siner.  It  exonerated  him. 
He  was  not  suspected  of  wronging  Cissie;  or,  rather, 
whether  he  had  or  had  not  wronged  her  made  no 
difference  to  Tump.  Peter's  crime  consisted  in  mere 
being,  in  existing  where  Cissie  could  see  him  and  desire 
him  rather  than  Tump.  Why  it  calmed  Peter  to 
know  that  Tump  held  no  dishonorable  charge  against 
him  the  mulatto  himself  could  not  have  told.  Tump's 
violence  showed  Peter  the  certainty  of  his  own  death, 
and  somehow  it  washed  away  the  hope  and  the  thought 
of  escape. 

Half-way  down  the  hill  they  entered  the  edge  of 
Niggertown.  The  smell  of  sties  and  stables  came  to 
them.  Peter's  thoughts  moved  here  and  there,  like 
the  eyes  of  a  little  child  glancing  about  as  it  is  forced 
to  leave  a  pleasure-ground. 

Peter  knew  that  Jim  Pink,  who  now  made  a  sorry 
figure  in  their  rear,  would  one  day  give  a  buffoon's 
mimicry  of  this  his  walk  to  death.  He  thought  of 
Tump,  who  would  have  to  serve  a  year  or  two  in  the 
Nashville  Penitentiaryj  for.the_murder^  of  negroes  is 
seldom  severely  punished.  He  thought  of  Cissie.  He 
was  being  murdered  because  Cissie  desired  him. 


BIRTHRIGHT  277 

And  then  Peter  remembered  the  single  bit  ot  wis- 
dom that  his  whole  life  had  taught  him.  It  was  this: 
no  people  can  become  civilized  until  the  woman  has 
iTie' power  of  choice  among  the  males  that  sue  for  her 
hand.  The  history  of  the  white  race  shows  the  gradual 
increase  of  the  woman's  power  of  choice.  Among  the 
yellow  races,  where  this  power  is  curtailed,  civilization 
is  curtailed.  It  was  this  principle  that  exalted  chivalry. 
Upon  it  the  white  man  has  reared  all  his  social  fabric. 

So  deeply  ingrained  is  it  that  almost  every  novel  writ- 
ten by  white  men  revolves  about  some  woman's  choice 
of  her  mate  being  thwarted  by  power  or  pride  or 
wealth,  but  in  every  instance  the  rightness  of  the 
woman's  choice  is  finally  justified.  The  burden  of 
every  song  is  love,  true  love,  enduring  love,  a  woman's 
true  and  enduring  love. 

And  in  his  moment  of  clairvoyance  Peter  saw  that 
these  songs  and  stories  were  profoundly  true.  Against 
a  woman's  selectiveness  no  other  social  force  may  count. 

That  was  why  his  own  race  was  weak  and  hopeless 
and  helpless.  The  males  of  his  people  were  devoid 
of  any  such  sentiment  or  self -repression.  They  were 
men  of  the  jungle,  creatures  of  tusk  and  claw  and  loin. 
This  very  act  of  violence  against  his  person  condemned  ! 
his  whole  race. 

These  thoughts  brought  the  mulatto  an  unspeakable 
sadness,  not  only  for  his  own  particular  death,  but 
that  this  idea,  this  great  redeeming  truth,  which  burned 
so  brightly  in  his  brain,  would  in  another  moment 
flicker  out,  unrevealed,  and  be  no  more. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  coughing  and  rattling  of  an  old  motor-car 
as  it  rounded  the  Niggertown  curve  delayed 
Tump  Pack's  act  of  violence.  Instinctively,  the  three 
men  v^aited  for  the  machine  to  pass  before  Peter 
w^alked  out  into  the  road.  Next  moment  it  appeared 
around  the  turn,  moving  slowly  through  the  dust  and 
spreading  a  veritable  fog  behind  it. 

All  three  negroes  recognized  the  first  glimpse  of 
the  hood  and  top,  for  there  are  only  three  or  four  cars 
in  Hooker's  Bend,  and  these  are  as  well  known  as  the 
faces  of  their  owners.  This  particular  motor  belonged 
to  Constable  Bobbs,  and  the  next  moment  the  trio  saw 
the  ponderous  body  of  the  officer  at  the  wheel,  and 
by  his  side  a  woman.  As  the  machine  clacked  toward 
them  Peter  felt  a  certain  surprise  to  see  that  it  was 
Cissie  Dildine. 

The  constable  in  the  car  scrutinized  the  black  men 
by  the  roadside  in  a  very  peculiar  way.  As  he  came 
near,  he  leaned  across  Cissie  and  almost  eclipsed  the 
girl.  He  eyed  the  trio  with  his  perpetual  menace  of 
a  grin  on  his  broad  red  face.  His  right  hand,  lying 
across  Cissie's  lap,  held  a  revolver.  When  closest 
he  shouted  above  the  clangor  of  his  engine: 

278 


BIRTHRIGHT  279 

"Now,  none  o'  that,  boys!  None  o'  that!  You'll 
prob'ly  hit  the  gal  if  you  shoot,  an'  I  '11  pick  you  off 
lak  three  black  skunks." 

He  brandished  his  revolver  at  them,  but  the  gesture 
was  barely  seen,  and  instantly  concealed  by  the  cloud 
of  dust  following  the  motor.  Next  moment  it  en- 
veloped the  negroes  and  hid  them  even  from  one 
another. 

It  was  only  after  Peter  was  lost  in  the  dust-cloud 
that  the  mulatto  really  divined  what  was  meant  by 
Cissie's  strange  appearance  with  the  constable,  her 
chalky  face,  her  frightened  brown  eyes.  The  sig- 
nificance of  the  scene  grew  in  his  mind.  He  stood  with 
eyes  screwed  to  slits  staring  into  the  apricot-colored 
dust  in  the  direction  of  the  vanishing  noise. 

Presently  Tump  Pack's  form  outlined  itself  in  the 
yellow  obscurity,  groping  toward  Peter.  He  still  held 
his  pistol,  but  it  swung  at  his  side.  He  called  Peter's 
name  in  the  strained  voice  of  a  man  struggling  not 
to  cough: 

"Peter — is    Mr.    Bobbs   done — *  rested  Cissie?" 

Peter  could  hardly  talk  himself. 

"Don't  know.     Looks  like  it." 

The  two  negroes  stared  at  each  other  through  the 
dust. 

"Fuh  Gawd's  sake!  Cissie  'rested!"  Tump  began 
to  cough.     Then  he  wheezed: 

"Mine  an'  yo'  little  deal's  off,  Peter.  You  gotta 
he'p  git  her  out."     Here  he  fell  into  a  violent  fit  of 


280  BIRTHRIGHT 

coughing,  and  started  groping  his  way  to  the  edge 
of  the  dust-cloud. 

In  the  rush  of  the  moment  the  swift  change  in 
Peter's  situation  appeared  only  natural.  He  followed 
Tump,  so  distressed  by  the  dust  and  disturbed  over 
Cissie  that  he  hardly  thought  of  his  peculiar  position. 
The  dust  pinched  the  upper  part  of  his  throat,  stung  his 
nose.  Tears  trickled  from  his  eyes,  and  he  pressed  his 
finger  against  his  upper  lip,  trying  not  to  sneeze.  He 
was  still  struggling  against  the  sneeze  when  Tump  re- 
covered his  speech. 

"Wh-whut  you  reckon  she  done,  Peter?  She  don' 
shoot  craps,  nor  boot-laig,  nor — "  He  fell  to  cough- 
ing. 

Peter  got  out  a  handkerchief  and  wiped  his  eyes. 

"Let 's  go — ^to  the  Dildine  house,"  he  said. 

The  two  moved  hurriedly  through  the  thinning  cloud, 
and  presently  came  to  breathable  air,  where  they  could 
see  the  houses  around  them. 

"I  know  she  done  somp'n;  I  know  she  done 
somp'n/'  chanted  Tump,  with  the  melancholy  cadence 
of  his  race.  He  shook  his  dusty  head.  "You  ain't 
never  been  in  jail,  is  you,  black  man?" 

Peter  said  he  had  not. 

"Lawd!  it  ain't  no  place  fuh  a  woman,"  declared 
Tump.  "You  dunno  nothin'  'bout  it,  black  man.  It 
sho  ain't  no  place  fuh  a  woman.'* 

A  notion  of  an  iron  cage  floated  before  Peter's 
mind.     The  two  negroes  trudged  on  through  the  cres- 


BIRTHRIGHT  281 

cent  side  by  side,  their  steps  raising  a  little  trail  of 
dust  in  the  air  behind  them.  Their  faces  and  clothes 
were  of  a  uniform  dust  color.  Streaks  of  mud  marked 
the  runnels  of  their  tears  down  their  cheeks. 

The  shrubbery  and  weeds  that  grew  alongside  the 
negro  thoroughfare  were  quite  dead.  Even  the  little 
avenue  of  dwarf  box  was  withered  that  led  from 
the  gate  to  the  door  of  the  Dildine  home.  The  two 
colored  men  walked  up  the  little  path  to  the  door, 
knocked,  and  waited  on  the  steps  for  the  little 
skirmish  of  observation  from  behind  the  blinds.  None 
came.  The  worst  had  befallen  the  house;  there  was 
nothing  to  guard.  The  door  opened  as  soon  as  an  in- 
inmate  could  reach  it,  and  Vannie  Dildine  stood  before 
them. 

The  quadroon's  eyes  were  red,  and  her  face  had 
the  moist,  slightly  swollen  appearance  that  comes  of 
protracted  weeping.  She  looked  so  frail  and  miserable 
that  Peter  instinctively  stepped  inside  and  took  her 
arm  to  assist  her  in  the  mere  physical  effort  of  standing. 

''What  is  the  matter,  Mrs.  Dildine?"  he  asked  in  a 
shocked  tone.     "What's  happened  to  Cissie?" 

Vannie  began  weeping  again  with  a  faint  gasping 
and  a  racking  of  her  flat  chest. 

"It's— it's—  O-o-oh,  Peter!"  She  put  an  arm 
about  him  and  began  weeping  against  him.  He 
soothed  her,  patted  her  shoulder,  at  the  same  time  star- 
ing at  the  side  of  her  head,  wondering  what  could  have 
dealt  her  this  blow. 


2^2  BIRTHRIGHT 

Presently  she  steadied  herself  and  began  explaining 
in  feeble  little  phrases,  sandwiched  between  sobs  and 
gasps : 

"She — tuk  a  brooch —  Kep' — kep'  layin'  it  roun'  in 
— h-her  way,  th-that  young  Sam  Arkwright  did, — a-an' 
finally  she — she  tuk  hit.  N-nen,  when  he  seen  he  h-had 
her,  he  said  sh-sh-she  'd  haf  to  d-do  wh-whut  he  said, 
or  he  'd  sen'  her  to-to  ja-a-il !"  Vannie  sobbed  drear- 
ily for  a  few  moments  on  Peter's  breast.  ''Sh-she  did 
fuh  a  while;  'n  'en  sh-she  broke  off  wid  h-him,  any- 
how, an' — ^an'  he  swo'  out  a  want  an  sont  her  to  jail !" 
The  mother  sobbed  without  comfort,  and  finally  added : 
"Sh-she  in  a  delicate  fix  now,  an'  'at  jail  goin'  to  be 
a  gloomy  place  fuh  Cissie." 

The  three  negroes  stood  motionless  in  the  dusty 
hallway,  motionless  save  for  the  racking  of  Vannie's 
sobs. 

Tump  Pack  stirred  himself. 

"Well,  we  gotta  git  her  out."  His  words  trailed 
off.  He  stood  wrinkling  his  half-inch  of  brow.  "I 
wonder  would  dey  exchange  pris'ners;  wonder  ef  I 
could  go  up  an'  serve  out  Cissie's  term." 

"Oh,  Tump!"  gasped  the  woman,  "ef  you  only 
could!" 

"I  '11  step  an'  see,  Miss  Vannie.  'At  sho  ain't  no 
place  fuh  a  nice  gal  lak  Cissie."  Tump  turned  on 
his  mission,  evidently  intending  to  walk  to  Jonesboro 
and  offer  himself  in  the  place  of  the  prisoner. 

Peter  supported  Vannie  back  into  the  poor  living- 


BIRTHRIGHT  283 

room,  and  placed  her  in  the  old  rocking-chair  before 
the  empty  hearth.  There  was  where  he  had  sat  the 
evening  Cissie  made  her  painful  confession  to  him. 
Only  now  did  he  realize  the  whole  of  what  Cissie  was 
trying  to  confess. 

Peter  Siner  overtook  Tump  Pack  a  little  way  down 
the  crescent,  Qpposite  the  Berry  cabin.  The  thorough- 
fare was  deserted,  because  the  weather  was  cold  and 
the  scantily  clad  children  were  indoors.  However, 
from  every  cabin  came  sound  of  laughing  and  romp- 
ing, and  now  and  then  a  youngster  darted  through  the 
cold  from  one  hut  to  another. 

It  seemed  to  Peter  Siner  only  a  little  while  since  he 
and  Ida  May  were  skittering  through  wintry  weather 
from  one  fire  to  another,  with  Cissie,  a  wailing,  wet- 
nosed  little  spoil-sport,  trailing  after  them.  And  then, 
with  a  wheeling  of  the  years,  they  were  scattered 
everywhere. 

As  the  negroes  passed  the  Berry  cabin.  Nan  Berry 
came  out  with  an  old  shawl  around  her  bristling  spikes. 
She  stopped  the  two  men  and  drew  them  to  her  gate 
with  a  gesture. 

"Wha  you  gwine?'* 

"Jonesbuh." 

'*Whut  you  goin'  do  'bout  po-o-o'  Cissie?" 

**Goin'  to  see  ef  the  sheriff  won'  take  me  'stid  o' 
Cissie." 

"Tha'  *s  right,"  said  Nan,  nodding  solemnly.  **I 
hopes  he  will.     You  is  mo'  used  to  it.  Tump." 


284  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Yeah,  an'  'at  jail  sho  ain't  no  place  fuh  a  nice 
gal  lak  Cissie." 

"Sho  ain't,"  agreed  Nan. 

Peter  interrupted  to  say  he  was  sure  the  sheriff 
would  not  exchange. 

The  hopes  of  his  listeners  fell. 

"Weh-ul,"  dragged  out  Nan,  with  a  long  face,  "of 
co'se  now  it's  lak  dis:  ef  Cissie  goin'  to  stay  in  dat 
ja-ul,  she's  goin'  to  need  some  mo'  clo'es  'cep'n  whut 
she  's  got  on, — specially  lak  she  is." 

Tump  stared  down  the  swing  of  the  crescent. 

"  'Fo'  Gawd,  dis  sho  don'  seem  lak  hit  's  right  to 
me,"  he  said. 

Nan  let  herself  out  at  the  rickety  gate.  "You  nig- 
gers wait  heah  tull  I  runs  up  to  Miss  Vannie's  an' 
git  some  o'  Cissie's  clo'es  fuh  you  to  tote  her." 

Tump  objected. 

"Jail  ain't  no  place  fuh  clean  clo'es.  She  jes  better 
serve  out  her  term  lak  she  is,  an'  wash  up  when  she 
gits  th'ugh." 

"You  fool  niggerr!"  snapped  Nan.  "She  kain't 
serve  out  her  term  lak  she  is!" 

"Da'  's  so,"  said  Tump. 

The  three  stood  silent.  Nan  and  Tump  lost  in 
blankness,  trying  to  think  of  something  to  do  for 
Cissie.     Finally  Nan  said: 

"I  heah  she  done  commit  gran'  larceny,  an'  they 
goin'  sen'  her  to  de  pen." 

"Whut  is  gran'  larceny?"  asked  Tump. 


BIRTHRIGHT  285 

"It 's  takin'  mo'"  at  one  time  an'  de  white  folks  'speck 
you  to  take,"  defined  the  woman.  *'Well,  I  '11  go  git 
her  clo'es."     She  hurried  off  up  the  crescent. 

Peter  and  Tump  waited  in  the  Berry  cabin  for  Nan's 
retitm.  Outside,  the  Berry  cabin  was  the  usual  clap- 
board-roofed, weather-stained  structure;  inside,  it  was 
dark,  windowless,  and  strong  with  the  odor  of  black 
folk.  Some  children  were  playing  around  the  hearth, 
roasting  chestnuts.  Their  elders  sat  in  a  circle  of 
decrepit  chairs.  It  was  so  dark  that  when  Peter  first 
entered  he  could  not  make  out  the  little  group,  but  he 
soon  recognized  their  voices:  Parson  Ranson,  Wince 
Washington,  Jerry  Dillihay,  and  all  of  the  Berry 
family. 

They  were  talking  of  Cissie,  of  course.  They  hoped 
Cissie  would  n't  really  be  sent  to  the  penitentiary,  that 
the  white  folks  would  let  her  out  in  time  for  her  to 
have  her  child  at  home.  Parson  Ranson  thought  it 
would  be  bad  luck  for  a  child  to  be  born  in  jail. 

Wince  Washington,  who  had  been  in  jail  a  number 
of  times,  suggested  that  they  bail  Cissie  out  by  signing 
their  names  to  a  paper.  He  had  been  set  free  by  this 
means  once  qr  twice. 

Sally,  Nan's  little  sister,  observed  tartly  that  if 
Cissie  had  n't  acted  so,  she  would  n't  have  been  in  jail. 

"Don'  speak  lak  dat  uv  dem  as  is  in  trouble,  Sally," 
reproved  old  Parson  Ranson,  solemnly;  "anybody  can 
say  *Ef.'  " 

"Slio  am  de  troof,"  agreed  Jerry  Dillihay. 


286  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Sho  am,  black  man."  The  conversation  drifted 
into  the  endless  moralizing  of  their  race,  but  it  held 
no  criticism  or  condemnation  of  Cissie.  From  the  tone 
of  the  negroes  one  would  have  thought  some  imper- 
sonal disaster  had  overtaken  her.  Every  one  was 
planning  how  to  help  Cissie,  how  to  make  her  present 
state  more  endurable.  They  were  the  black  folk,  the 
unfortunate  of  the  earth,  and  the  pride  of  righteousness 
is  only  to  the  well  placed  and  the  untempted. 

Presently  Nan  came  back  with  a  bundle  of  Cissie's 
clothes.  Tump  took  the  bundle  of  dainty  lingerie,  the 
intimate  garments  of  the  woman  he  loved,  and  set 
forth  on  his  quixotic  errand.  He  tied  it  to  his  shoulder- 
holster  and  set  out.  Peter  went  a  little  of  the  way 
with  him.  It  was  almost  dusk  when  they  started. 
The  chill  of  approaching  night  stung  the  men's  faces. 
As  they  walked  past  the  footpath  that  led  over  the 
Big  Hill,  three  pistol-shots  from  the  glade  announced 
that  the  boot-leggers  had  opened  business  for  the  night. 

Tump  paused  and  shivered.  He  said  it  was  a  cold 
night.  He  thought  he  would  like  to  get  a  kick  of 
"white  mule"  to  put  a  little  heart  in  him.  It  was  a  long 
walk  to  Jonesboro.  He  hesitated  a  moment,  then 
turned  off  the  road  around  the  crescent  for  the  path 
through  the  glade. 

A  thought  to  dissuade  Tump  from  drinking  the 
fiery  "singlings"  of  the  moonshiners  crossed  Peter's 
mind,  but  he  put  it  aside.  Tump  was  a  habitue  of 
the  glade.     All  the  physiological  arguments  upon  which 


BIRTHRIGHT  287 

Peter  could  base  an  argument  were  far  beyond  the 
ex-soldier's  comprehension.  So  Tump  turned  off 
through  the  dark  trees.  Peter  watched  him  until  all 
he  could  see  was  the  white  blur  of  Cissie's  underwear 
swinging  against  his  holster. 

After  Tump's  disappearance,  Peter  stood  for  sev- 
eral minutes  thinking.  His  brief  crusade  into  Nig- 
gertown  had  ended  in  a  situation  far  outside  of  his 
volition.  That  morning  he  had  started  out  with  some 
vague  idea  of  taking  Niggertown  in  his  hands  and 
molding  it  in  accordance  with  his  white  ideas;  but 
Niggertown  had  taken  Peter  into  its  hands,  had 
threatened  his  life,  had  administered  to  him  profound 
mental  and  moral  shocks,  and  now  had  dropped  him, 
like  some  bit  of  waste,  with  his  face  set  over  the  Big 
Hill  for  white  town. 

As  Peter  stood  there  it  seemed  to  him  there  was 
something  symbolic  in  his  attitude.  He  was  no  longer 
of  the  black  world;  he  was  of  the  white.  He  did 
not  understand  his  people;  they  eluded  him. 

He  belonged  to  the  white  world;  not  to  the  village 
across  the  hill,  but  to  the  North.  Nothing  now  pre- 
vented him  from  going  North  and  taking  the  position 
with  Farquhar.  Cissie  Dildine  was  impossible  for 
him  now.  Niggertown  was  immovable,  at  least  for 
him.  He  was  no  Washington  to  lead  his  people  to  a 
loftier  plane.  In  fact,  Peter  began  to  suspect  that 
he  was  no  leader  at  all.  He  saw  now  that  his  initial 
success  with  the  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Benevolence 


288  BIRTHRIGHT 

had  been  effected  merely  by  the  aura  of  his  college 
training.  After  his  first  misstep  he  had  never  re- 
habilitated himself.  He  perhaps  had  a  dash  of  the 
artistic  in  him,  and  the  power  to  mold  ideas  often 
confuses  itself  .subjectively  with  the  power  to  mold 
human  beings.  In  reality  he  did  not  even  understand 
the  people  he  assumed  to  mold.  A  suspicion  came  to 
him  that  under  the  given  conditions  their  ways  were 
more  rational  than  his  own. 

As  for  Cissie  Dildine,  his  duty  by  the  girl,  his 
queer  protective  passion  for  her — all  that  was  surely 
past  now.  After  her  lapse  from  all  decency  there 
was  no  reason  why  he  should  spend  another  thought 
on  her.     He  would  go  North  to  Chicago. 

The  last  of  the  twilight  was  fading  in  swift,  visible 
gradations  of  light.  The  cedars,  the  cabins,  and  the 
hill  faded  in  pulse-beats  of  darkness.  Above  the  Big 
Hill  the  last  ember  of  day  smoldered  against  a  green- 
blue  infinity.  Here  and  there  a  star  pricked  the  dome 
with  a  wintry  brilliance. 

Then,  somehow,  the  thought  of  Cissie  looking  out 
on  that  chilly  sky  through  iron  bars  tightened  Peter's 
throat.  He  caught  himself  up  sharply  for  his  emotion. 
He  began  a  vague  defense  of  the  white  man's  laws  on 
grounds  as  cold  and  impersonal  as  the  winter  evening. 
Laws,  customs,  and  conventions  were  for  the  strength- 
ening of  men,  to  seed  the  select,  to  winnow  the  weak. 
It  was  white  logic,  applied  firmly,  as  by  a  white  man. 
But  somehow  the  stars  multiplied  and  kept  Cissie's 


BIRTHRIGHT  289 

image  before  Peter — a  cold,  frightened  girl,  harassed 
with  coming  motherhood,  peering  at  those  chill,  distant 
lights  out  of  the  blackness  of  a  jail. 

The  mulatto  decided  to  spend  the  night  in  his 
mother's  cabin.  He  would  do  his  packing,  and  be 
ready  for  the  down-river  boat  in  the  morning.  He 
found  his  way  to  his  own  gate  in  the  darkness.  He 
lifted  it  around,  entered,  and  walked  to  his  door. 
When  he  tried  to  open  it,  he  found  some  one  had 
bored  holes  through  the  shutter  and  the  jamb  and  had 
wired  it  shut. 

Peter  struck  a  match  to  see  just  what  had  been 
done.  The  flame  displayed  a  small  sheet  tacked  on  the 
door.  He  spent  two*  matches  investigating  it.  It 
was  a  notice  of  levy,  posted  by  the  constable  in  an 
action  of  debt  brought  against  the  estate  of  Caroline 
Siner  by  Henry  Hooker.  The  owner  of  the  estate 
and  the  public  in  general  were  warned  against  remov- 
ing anything  whatsoever  from  the  premises  under 
penalty  exacted  by  the  law  governing  such  offenses. 
Then  Peter  untwisted  the  wire  and  entered. 

Peter  searched  about  and  found  the  tiny  brass  night- 
lamp  which  his  mother  always  had  used.  The  larger 
glass-bowled  lamp  was  gone.  The  interior  of  the 
cabin  was  clammy  from  cold  and  foul  from  long  lack 
of  airing.  In  the  corner  his  mother's  old  four-poster 
loomed  in  the  shadows,  but  he  could  see  some  of  its 
covers  had  been  taken.  He  passed  into  the  kitchen 
with  a  notion  of  building  a  fire  and  eating  a  bite,  but 


290  BIRTHRIGHT 

everything  edible  had  been  abstracted.  Even  one  of 
the  lids  of  the  old  step-stove  was  gone.  Most  of  the 
pans  and  kettles  had  disappeared,  but  the  pretty  old 
Dutch  sugar-bowl  remained  on  a  bare  paper-covered 
shelf.  Negro-like,  whatever  person  or  persons  who 
had  ransacked  Peter's  home  considered  the  sugar-bowl 
too  fine  to  take.  Or  they  may  have  thought  that 
Peter  would  want  this  bowl  for  a  keepsake,  and  with 
that  queer  compassion  that  permeates  a  negro's  worst 
moments  they  allowed  it  to  remain.  And  Peter  knew 
if  he  raised  an  outcry  about  his  losses,  much  of  the 
property  would  be  surreptitiously  restored,  or  perhaps 
his  neighbors  would  bring  back  his  things  and  say  they 
had  found  them.  They  would  help  him  as  best  they 
could,  just  as  they  of  the  crescent  would  help  Cissie 
as  best  they  could,  and  would  receive  her  back  as  one 
of  them  when  she  and  her  baby  were  finally  released 
from  jail. 

They  were  a  queer  people.     They  were  a  people 

/who  would  never  get  on  well  and  do  well.     They  lacked 
the  steel-like  edge  that  the  white  man  achieves.     By 
j     virtue  of  his  hardness,  a  white  man  makes  his  very 
j     laws  and  virtues  instruments  to  crush  and  mulct  his 
fellow-man ;  but  negroes  are  so  softened  by  untoward 
'     streaks  of  sympathy  that  they  lose  the  very  uses  of 
their  crimes. 

The  depression  of  the  whole  day  settled  upon  Peter 
with  the  deepening  night.  He  held  his  poor  light  above 
his  head  and  picked  his  way  to  his  own  room.     After 


BIRTHRIGHT  291 

the  magnificence  of  the  Renfrew  manor,  it  had  con- 
tracted to  a  grimy  little  box  lined  with  yellowed  papers. 
His  books  were  still  intact,  but  Henry  Hooker  would 
get  them  as  part  payment  on  the  Dillihay  place,  which 
Henry  owned.  On  his  little  table  still  lay  the  pile  of 
old  examination  papers,  lists  of  incoherent  questions 
which  somebody  somewhere  imagined  formed  a  test 
of  human  ability  to  meet  and  answer  the  mysterious 
searchings  of  life. 

Peter  was  familiar  with  the  books;  many  of  the 
questions  he  had  learned  by  rote,  but  the  night  and  the 
crescent,  and  the  thought  of  a  pregnant  girl  caged  in 
the  blackness  of  a  jail  filled  his  soul  with  a  great  mel- 
ancholy query  to  which  he  could  find  no  answer. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

TWO  voices  talking,  interrupting  each  other  with 
ejaculations,  after  the  fashion  of  negroes  under 
excitement,  aroused  Peter  Siner  from  his  sleep.  He 
caught  the  words :  "He  did !  Tump  did !  The  jailer  did ! 
'Fo'  God !  black  man,  whut  's  Cissie  doin'  ?'* 

Overtones  of  shock,  even  of  horror,  in  the  two 
voices  brought  Peter  wide  awake  the  moment  he 
opened  his  eyes.  He  sat  up  suddenly  in  his  bed,  re- 
mained perfectly  still,  listening  with  his  mouth  open. 
The  voices,  however,  were  passing.  The  words  be- 
came indistinct,  then  relapsed  into  that  bubbling  mon- 
otone of  human  voices  at  a  distance,  and  presently 
ceased. 

These  fragmentary  phrases,  however,  feathered 
with  consternation,  filled  Peter  with  vague  premo- 
nitions. He  whirled  his  legs  out  of  bed  and  began 
drawing  on  his  clothes.  When  he  was  up  and  into  the 
crescent,  however,  nobody  was  in  sight.  He  stood 
breathing  the  chill,  damp  air,  blinking  his  eyes.  Lack 
of  his  cold  bath  made  him  feel  chilly  and  lethargic. 
He  wriggled  his  shoulders  and  considered  going  back, 
after  all,  and  having  his  splash.     Just  then  he  saw  the 

292 


BIRTHRIGHT  293 

Persimmon  coming  around  the  crescent.  Peter  called 
to  the  roustabout  and  asked  about  Tump  Pack. 

The  Persimmon  looked  at  Peter  with  his  half-asleep, 
protruding  eyeballs. 

"Don'  you  know  'bout  Tump  Pack  already,  Mister 
Siner?" 

"No."  Peter  was  astonished  at  the  formality  of  the 
"Mr.  Siner." 

"Then  is  you  'spectin'  somp'n  'bout  him?'* 

"Why,  no,  but  I  was  asleep  in  there  a  moment  ago, 
and  somebody  came  along  talking  about  Tump  and 
Cissie.     They — they  aren't  married,  are  they?" 

"Oh,  no-o,  no-0-0,  no-0-0-0-0."  The  Persimmon 
waggled  his  bullet  head  slowly  from  side  to  side.  "I 
beared  Tump  got  into  a  lil  trouble  wid  de  jailer  las* 
night." 

"Serious?" 

"I  dunno."  The  Persimmon  closed  one  of  his  pro- 
truding yellow  eyes.  "Owin'  to  whut  you  call  se'ius; 
maybe  whut  I  call  se'ius  wouldn't  be  se'ius  to  you 
at  all ;  'n  'en  maybe  whut  you  call  se'ius  would  be  ve'y 
insince'ius  to  Tump."  The  roustabout's  philosophy, 
which  consisted  in  a  monotonous  recasting  of  a  given 
proposition,  trickled  on  and  on  in  the  cold  wind. 
After  a  while  it  fizzled  out  to  nothing  at  all,  and  the 
Persimmon  asked  in  a  queer  manner:  "Did  you  give 
Tump  some  women's  clo'es,  Peter?" 

It  was  such  an  odd  question  that  at  first  Peter  was 
at  loss ;  then  he  recalled  Nan  Berry's  despatching  Cissie 


294  BIRTHRIGHT 

some    underwear.     He    explained    this    to    the    Per- 
simmon, and  tacked  on  a  curious,  **Why?" 

"Oh,  nothin';  nothin'  'tall.  Everybody  say  you  a 
mighty  long-haided  nigger.  Jim  Pink  he  tell  us  'bout 
Tump  Pack  marchin'  you  'roun'  wid  a  gun.  I  sho 
don'  want  you  ever  git  mad  at  me,  Mister  Siner.  Man 
wid  a  gun  an'  you  turn  yo'  long  haid  on  him  an'  blow 
him  away  wid  a  wad  o'  women's  clo'es.  I  sho  don' 
want  you  ever  cross  yo'  fingers  at  me,  Mister  Siner." 

Peter  stared  at  the  grotesque,  bullet-headed  rous- 
tabout. "Persimmon,"  he  said  uneasily,  **what  in  the 
world  are  you  talking  about?" 

The  Persimmon  smiled  a  sickly,  white-toothed 
smile.  "Jim  Pink  say  yo'  aidjucation  is  a  flivver. 
I  say,  *Jim  Pink,  no  nigger  don'  go  off  an'  study  fo' 
yeahs  in  college  whut  'n  he  comes  back  an'  kin  throw 
some  kin'  uv  a  hoodoo  over  us  fool  niggers  whut  ain't 
got  no  brains.  Now,  Tump  wid  a  gun,  an'  you  wid 
jes  ordina'y  women's  clo'es!  'Fo'  Gawd,  aidjucation 
is  a  great  thing ;  sho  is  a  great  thing."  The  Persimmon 
gave  Peter  an  apprehensive  wink  and  moved  on. 

There  was  no  use  trying  to  extract  information 
from  the  Persimmon  unless  he  was  minded  to  give  it. 
His  talk  would  merely  become  vaguer  and  vaguer. 
Peter  watched  him  go,  then  turned  and  attempted  to 
throw  the  whole  matter  off  his  mind  by  assuming  a 
certain  brisk  Northern  mood.  He  must  pack,  get 
ready    for    the    down-river    gasolene    launch.     The 


BIRTHRIGHT  295 

doings  of  Tump  Pack  and  Cissie  Dildine  were,  after 
all,  nothing  to  him. 

He  started  inside,  when  the  levy  notice  on  the  door 
again  met  his  eyes.  He  paused,  read  it  over  once  more, 
and  decided  that  he  must  go  over  the  hill  to  the 
Planter's  Bank  and  get  Henry  Hooker's  permission 
to  remove  certain  small  personal  belongings  that  he 
wanted  to  take  with  him. 

The  mere  clear-cut  decision  to  go  invigorated  Peter. 
Some  of  the  energy  that  always  filled  him  during  his 
college  days  in  Boston  seemed  to  come  to  him  now 
from  the  mere  thought  of  the  North.  Soon  he  would 
be  in  the  midst  of  it,  moving  briskly,  talking  to  wide- 
awake men  to  whom  a  slightly  unusual  English  word 
would  not  form  a  stumbling-block  to  conversation. 
He  set  out  down  the  crescent  and  across  the  Big  Hill 
at  a  swinging  stride.     He  was  glad  to  get  away. 

Beyond  the  white  church  on  the  other  side  of  the 
hill  he  heard  a  motor  coming  in  on  the  Jonesboro  road. 
Presently  he  saw  a  battered  car  moving  around  the 
long  swing  of  the  pike,  spewing  a  trail  of  dust  down 
the  wind.     Its  clacking  became  prodigious. 

The  mulatto  was  just  entering  that  indefinite  stretch 
of  thoroughfare  where  a  country  road  becomes  a  village 
street  when  there  came  a  wail  of  brakes  behind  him  and 
he  looked  around. 

It  was  Dawson  Bobbs's  car.  The  fat  man  now 
slowed  up  not  far  from  the  mulatto  and  called  to  him. 


296  BIRTHRIGHT 

"Yes,  sir,'*  said  Peter. 

Dawson  bobbed  his  fat  head  backward  and  upward 
in  a  signal  for  Peter  to  approach.  It  held  the  casual- 
ness  of  one  certain  to  be  obeyed. 

Although  Peter  had  done  no  crime,  nor  had  even 
harbored  a  criminal  intention,  a  trickle  of  apprehension 
went  through  him  at  Bobbs's  nod.  He  recalled  Jim 
Pink's  saying  that  it  was  bad  luck  to  see  the  constable. 
He  walked  up  to  the  shuddering  motor  and  stood  about 
three  feet  from  the  running-board. 

The  officer  bit  on  a  sliver  of  toothpick  that  he  held 
in  his  thin  lips. 

"Accident  up  Jonesboro  las'  night,  Peter." 

"What  was  it,  Mr.  Bobbs?" 

"Tump  Pack  got  killed." 

Peter  continued  looking  fixedly  at  Mr.  Bobbs's  broad 
red  face.  The  dusty  road  beneath  him  seemed  to  give 
a  little  dip.  He  repeated  the  information  emptily, 
trying  to  orient  himself  to  this  sudden  change  in  his 
whole  mental  horizon. 

The  officer  was  looking  at  Peter  fixedly  with  his  chill 
slits  of  eyes. 

"Yeah;  trying  to  make  a  jail  delivery." 

The  two  men  continued  looking  at  each  other,  one 
from  the  road,  the  other  from  the  motor.  The  flow  of 
Peter's  thoughts  seemed  to  divide.  The  greater  part 
was  occupied  with  Tump  Pack.  Peter  could  vision  the 
formidable  ex-soldier  lying  dead  in  Jonesboro  jail,  with 
his  little  congressional  medal  on  his  breast.     Some 


BIRTHRIGHT  297 

lighter  portion  of  his  mind  flickered  about  here  and 
there  on  trivial  things.  He  observed  a  little  hole  rusted 
in  the  running-board  of  the  motor.  He  noticed  that 
the  officer's  eyes  were  just  the  same  chill,  washed  blue 
as  the  winter  sky  above  his  head.  He  remembered  a 
tale  that,  before  electrocution  became  a  law  in  Tennes- 
see the  county  sheriff's  nerve  had  failed  him  at  a  hang- 
ing, and  the  constable  Dawson  Bobbs  had  sprung  the 
drop.  There  was  something  terrible  about  the  fat  man. 
He  would  do  anything,  absolutely  anything,  that  came 
to  his  hands  in  the  way  of  legal  sewage. 

In  the  midst  of  these  thoughts  Peter  heard  himself 
saying. 

"He — was  trying  to  get,  Cissie  out  ?" 

"Yep." 

"He — must  have  been  drunk." 

"Oh,  yeah." 

Mr.  Bobbs  sat  studying  the  mulatto.  As  he  studied 
him  he  said  slowly : 

"Some  of  'em  say  he  was  disguised  as  a  woman. 
Others  say  he  had  some  women's  clothes  along,  ready 
to  put  on.  Now,  me  and  the  sheriff  knowed  Tump 
Pack  purty  well,  Peter,  and  we  knowed  that  nigger 
never  in  the  worl'  would  'a'  thought  up  sich  a  plan 
by  hisself." 

He  sat  looking  at  Peter  so  interrogatively  that  the 
mulatto  began,  in  a  strained,  earnest  voice,  telling  the 
constable  precisely  what  had  happened  in  regard  to 
the  clothes. 


298  BIRTHRIGHT 

Mr.  Bobbs  sat  listening  impassively,  moving  his 
toothpick  up  and  down  from  one  side  to  the  other  of 
his  small,  thin-lipped  mouth.     At  last  he  nodded. 

"Well,  I  guess  that 's  about  the  way  of  it.  I  did  n't 
exactly  understand  the  women's  clothes  business, — 
damn'  fool  disguise, — but  we  figgered  it  might  pop  into 
the  head  of  a'  edjucated  nigger."  He  sucked  his  teeth, 
reflectively.  *Teter,"  he  said  at  last,  ''seems  to  me, 
if  I  was  you,  I  'd  drift  on  away  from  this  town.  The 
niggers  around  here  ain't  strong  for  you  now;  some 
say  you  're  a  hoodoo ;  some  say  this  an'  some  that. 
The  white  folks  don't  exactly  like  you  trying  ho  get 
up  a  cook's  union.  It 's  your  right  to  do  that  if  you 
want  to,  of  course,  but  this  is  a  mighty  small  city  to 
have  unions  and  things.  The  fact  is,  it  ain't  a  big 
enough  place  for  a  nigger  of  yore  ability,  Peter.  I 
b'lieve,  if  I  was  you,  I'd  jes  drift  on  some'eres  else." 

The  officer  tipped  up  his  toothpick  so  that  it  lifted 
his  upper  lip  in  a  little  v-shaped  opening  and  exposed 
a  strong,  yellowish  tooth.  At  the  moment  his  machine 
started  slowly  forward.  It  gave  him  the  appearance  of 
accidentally  rolling  off  while  immersed  in  deep  thought. 

The  death  of  Tump  Pack  moved  Peter  with  a  sense 
of  strange  pathos.  He  always  remembered  Tump 
tramping  away  through  the  night  to  carry  Cissie  some 
underclothes  and,  if  possible,  to  take  her  place  in  jail. 
At  the  foundation  of  Tump's  being  lay  a  faithfulness 
and  devotion  to  Cissie  that  reached  the  heights  of  a 


BIRTHRIGHT  299 

clog's.  And  yet,  he  might  have  deserted  her,  he  would 
probably  have  beaten  her,  and  he  most  certainly  would 
have  betrayed  her  many,  many  times.  It  was  inex- 
plicable. 

Now  that  Tump  was  dead,  the  mantle  of  his  fidelity 
somehow  seemed  to  fall  on  Peter.  For  some  reason 
Peter  felt  that  he  should  assume  Tump's  place  as  Cissie 
Dildine's  husband  and  protector.  Had  Tump  lived, 
Peter  might  have  gone  North  in  peace,  if  not  in  hap- 
piness. Now  such  a  journey,  without  Cissie,  had  be- 
come impossible.  He  had  a  feeling  that  it  would  not 
be  right. 

As  for  the  disgrace  of  marrying  such  a  woman  as 
Cissie  Dildine,  Peter  slowly  gave  that  idea  up.  The 
"worthinesses"  and  "disgraces"  implicit  in  Harvard 
atmosphere,  which  Peter  had  spent  four  years  of  his 
life  imbibing,  slowly  melted  away  in  the  air  of  Nigger- 
town.  What  was  honorable  there,  what  was  disgrace- 
ful there,  somehow  changed  its  color  here. 

By  virtue  of  this  change  Peter  felt  intuitively  that 
Cissie  Dildine  was  neither  disgraced  by  her  arrest  nor 
soiled  by  her  physical  condition.  Somehow  she  seemed 
just  as  "nice"  a  girl,  just  as  "good"  a  girl,  as  ever  she 
was  before.  Moreover,  every  other  darky  in  Nigger-" 
town  held  these  same  instinctive  beliefs.  Had  it  not 
been  for  that,  Peter  would  have  thought  it  was  his 
passion  pleading  for  the  girl,  justifying  itself  by  a  gro- 
tesque morality,  as  passions  often  do.  But  this  was 
not  the  correct  solution.     The  sentiment  was  enigmatic. 


300  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter  puzzled  over  it  time  and  time  again  as  he  waited 
in  Hooker's  Bend  for  the  outcome  of  Cissie's  trial. 

The  octoroon's  imprisonment  came  to  an  end  on  the 
third  day  after  Tump's  death.  Sam  Arkwright's  par- 
ents had  not  known  of  their  son's  legal  proceedings, 
and  Mr.  Arkwright  immediately  quashed  the  warrant, 
and  hushed  up  the  unfortunate  matter  as  best  he 
could.  Young  Sam  was  suddenly  sent  away  from 
home  to  college,  as  the  best  step  in  the  circumstances. 
And  so  the  wishes  of  the  adolescent  in  the  cedar-glade 
came  queerly  to  pass,  even  if  Peter  did  withhold  any 
grave,  mature  advice  on  the  subject  which  he  may  have 
possessed. 

Naturally,  there  was  much  mirth  among  the  men  of 
Hooker's  Bend  and  much  virulence  among  the  women 
over  the  peculiar  conditions  under  which  young  Sam 
made  his  pilgrimage  in  pursuit  of  wisdom  and  morals 
and  the  right  conduct  of  life.  And  life  being  problem- 
atic and  uncertain  as  it  is,  and  prone  to  wind  about  in 
the  strangest  way,  no  one  may  say  with  certitude  that 
young  Sam  did  not  make  a  promising  start. 

Certainly,  over  the  affair  the  Knights  of  the  Round 
Table  launched  many  a  quip  and  jest,  but  that  simply 
proved  the  fineness  of  their  sentiments  toward  a  certain 
delicate  human  relation  which  forms  mankind's  single 
awful  approach  to  the  creative  and  the  holy. 

Tump  Pack  became  almost  a  mythical  figure  in  Nig- 
gertown.     Jim  Pink  Staggs  composed  a  saga  relating 


BIRTHRIGHT  301 

the  soldier's  exploits  in  France,  his  assault  on  the  jail 
to  liberate  Cissie,  and  his  death. 

In  his  songs — and  Jim  Pink  had  composed  a  good 
many — the  minstrel  instinctively  avoided  humor.  He 
always  improvised  them  to  the  sobbing  of  a  guitar, 
and  they  were  as  invariably  sad  as  the  poetry  of 
adolescents.  It  was  called  "Tump  Pack's  Lament." 
The  negroes  of  Hooker's  Bend  learned  it  from  Jim 
Pink,  and  with  them  it  drifted  up  and  down  the  three 
great  American  rivers,  and  now  it  is  sung  by  the  roust- 
abouts, stevedores,  and  underlings  of  our  strange  black 
American  world. 

This  song  commemorating  Tump  Pack's  bravery  and 
faithfulness  to  his  love  may  very  well  take  the  place 
of  the  Congressional  medal  which,  unfortunately,  was 
lost  on  the  night  the  soldier  was  killed.  Between  the 
two,  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  accolade  of  fame 
bestowed  in  the  buffoon's  simple  melody  is  more  vital 
and  enduring  than  that  accorded  by  special  act  of  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  of  America. 

When  Cissie  Dildine  returned  from  jail,  she  and 
her  mother  arranged  the  Dildine-Siner  wedding  as 
nearly  according  to  white  standards  in  similar  circum- 
stances as  they  could  conceive.  They  agreed  that  it 
should  be  a  simple,  quiet  home  wedding.  However, 
as  every  soul  in  Niggertown,  a  number  of  colored 
friends  in  Jonesboro,  and  a  contingent  from  up-river 
villages  meant  to  attend,  it  became  necessary  to  hold 
the  service  in  the  church. 


302  BIRTHRIGHT 

The  officiating  minister  was  not  Parson  Ranson  after 
all,  but  a  Reverend  Cleotus  Haidus,  the  presiding  elder 
of  that  circuit  of  the  A  fro- American  Methodist  Church, 
whose  duties  happened  to  call  him  to  Hooker's  Bend 
that  day.  So,  notwithstanding  Cissie's  efforts  at  sim- 
plicity, the  wedding,  after  all,  was  resolved  into  an 
affair. 

Once,  in  one  of  her  moments  of  clairvoyance,  Cissie 
said  to  Peter: 

"Our  trouble  is,  Peter,  we  are  trying  to  mix  what 
I  have  learned  in  Nashville  and  what  you  have  learned 
in  Boston  with  what  we  both  feel  in  Hooker's  Bend. 
I — I  'm  almost  ashamed  to  say  it,  but  I  don't  really 
feel  sad  and  plaintive  at  all,  Peter.  I  feel  glad, 
gloriously  glad.  Oh,  my  dear,  dear  Peter!"  and  she 
flung  her  arms  around  Peter's  neck  and  held  him  with 
all  her  might  against  her  ripening  bosom. 

To  Cissie  her  theft,  her  jail  sentence,  her  pregnancy, 
were  nothing  more  than  if  she  had  taken  a  sip  of  water. 
However,  with  the  imitativeness  of  her  race  and  the 
histrionic  ability  of  her  sex,  she  appeared  pensive  and 
subdued  during  the  elaborate  double-ring  ceremony 
performed  by  the  Reverend  Cleotus  Haidus.  Nobody 
in  the  packed  church  knew  how  tremendously  Cissie's 
heart  was  beating  except  Peter,  who  held  her  hand. 

The  ethical  engine  that  Peter  had  patiently  builded 
in  Harvard  almost  ceased  to  function  in  this  weird 
morality  of  Niggertown.  Whether  he  were  doing 
right  or  doing  wrong,  Peter  could  not  determine.     He 


.^^kv.^iv] 


^^^^^il^'i  i 


.f<- '  /' 


r-  •'^•^>.  TTT prf-j v'^^-^^;;^,^     i' 


The  bridal  couple  embarked  for  Cairo 


BIRTHRIGHT  303 

lost  all  his  moorings.  At  times  he  felt  himself  walk- 
ing according  to  the  ethnological  law,  which  is  the  Har- 
vard way  of  saying  walking  according  to  the  will  of 
God;  but  at  other  times  he  felt  party  to  some  unpar- 
donable obscenity.  So  deeply  was  he  disturbed  that 
out  of  the  dregs  of  his  mind  floated  up  old  bits  of  the 
Scriptures  that  he  was  unaware  of  possessing :  "There 
is  a  way  which  seemeth  right  unto  a  man,  but  the  end 
thereof  are  the  ways  of  death.'*  And  Peter  wondered 
if  he  were  not  in  that  way. 

The  bridal  couple  embarked  for  Cairo  on  the  Red 
Cloud,  a  packet  in  the  Dubuque,  Ohio,  and  Tennessee 
River  trade.  Peter  and  Cissie  were  not  allowed  to 
walk  up  the  main  stairway  into  the  passengers'  cabin, 
but  were  required  to  pick  their  way  along  the  boiler- 
deck,  through  the  stench  of  freight,  lumber,  live  stock 
and  sleeping  rotistabouts.  Then  they  went  through 
the  heat  and  steam  of  the  engine-room  up  a  small  com- 
panionway  that  led  through  the  toilet,  on  to  the  rear 
guard  of  the  main  deck,  and  thence  back  to  a  little  cuddy 
behind  the  main  saloon  called  the  chambermaid's  cabin. 

The  chambermaid's  cabin  was  filled  with  the  per- 
petual odor  of  hot  soap-suds,  soiled  laundry,  and  the 
broader  smell  of  steam  and  the  boat's  machinery.  The 
little  place  trembled  night  and  day,  for  the  steamer's 
engines  were  just  beneath  them,  and  immediately  be- 
hind them  thundered  the  great  stern- wheel  of  the 
packet.  A  single  square  window  in  the  end  of  the 
chambermaid's  cabin  looked  out  on  the  wheel,  but  at 


304  BIRTHRIGHT 

all  times,  except  when  the  wind  was  blowing  from  just 
the  right  quarter,  this  window  was  deluged  with  a 
veritable  Niagara  of  water.  The  continual  shake  of 
the  cabin,  the  creak  of  the  rudder-beam  working  to  and 
fro,  the  watery  thunder  of  the  wheel,  and  the  solemn 
rumble  of  the  engines  made  conversation  impossible 
until  the  travelers  grew  accustomed  to  the  noises. 
Still,  Cissie  found  it  pleasant.  She  liked  to  sit  and 
look  out  into  the  main  saloon,  with  its  interminable 
gilded  scrolls  extending  away  up  the  long  cabin,  a  suave 
perspective.  She  liked  to  watch  the  white  passengers 
dine — the  white  napery,  the  bouquets,  the  endless  tables 
all  filled  with  diners;  some  swathed  in  napkins  from 
chin  to  waistband,  others  less  completely  protected. 
It  gave  Cissie  a  certain  tang  of  triumph  to  smile  at 
the  swathed  ones  and  to  think  that  she  knew  better  than 
that. 

At  night  a  negro  string-band  played  for  the  white 
excursionists  to  dance,  and  Cissie  would  sit,  with  glow- 
ing eyes,  clenching  Peter's  hand,  every  fiber  of  her 
asway  to  the  music,  and  it  seemed  as  if  her  heart  would 
go  mad.  All  these  inhibitions,  all  this  spreading  be- 
fore her  of  forbidden  joys,  did  not  daunt  her  delight. 
She  reveled  in  them  by  propinquity. 

The  chambermaid  was  a  Mrs.  Antolia  Higgman,  a 
strong,  full-bodied  cafe-mi-lait  negress.  She  was  a 
very  sensible  woman,  and  during  her  work  on  the  boat 
she  had  picked  up  a  Northern  accent  and  a  number  of 
little  mannerisms  from  the  Chicago  and  St.  Louis  ex- 


BIRTHRIGHT  305 

cursionists,  who  made  ten-day  round  trips  from  Du- 
buque to  Florence,  Alabama,  and  return.  When  Mrs. 
Higgman  was  not  running  errands  for  the  women 
passengers,  she  was  working  at  her  perpetual  launder- 
ing. 

At  first  Peter  was  a  little  uneasy  as  to  how  Mrs. 
Higgman  would  treat  Cissie,  but  she  turned  out  a 
good-hearted  woman,  and  did  everything  she  could  to 
make  the  young  wife  comfortable.  It  soon  became 
clear  that  Mrs.  Higgman  knew  the  whole  situation,  for 
one  day  she  said  to  Cissie  in  her  odd  dialect,  burred 
with  Yankeeish  "r's"  and  ''ing's." 

"These  river-r  towns,  Mrs.  Siner-r,  are  jest  like  one 
big  village,  with  the  river-r  for  its  Main  Street.  I 
know  ever-r'thang  that  goes  on,  through  the  cabin-boys 
an'  cooks,  an' — an' — you  cerrtainly  ar-re  a  dear-r,  Mrs. 
Siner-r,"  and  thereupon,  quite  unexpectedly,  she  kissed 
Cissie. 

So  on  about  the  second  day  down  the  river  Cissie 
dropped  her  saddened  manner  and  became  frankly, 
freely,  and  riotously  happy.  After  the  fashion  of 
village  negresses,  she  insisted  on  helping  Mrs.  Higgman 
with  her  work,  and,  incidentally,  she  cultivated  Mrs. 
Higgman's  Northern  accent.  When  the  chambermaid 
was  out  on  her  errands  and  Cissie  found  a  moment 
alone  with  Peter,  she  would  tweak  his  ear  or  pull  his 
cheek  and  provoke  him  to  kiss  her.  Indeed,  it  was  all 
the  hot,  shuddering  little  laundry-room  could  do  to 
contain  the  gay  and  bubbling  Cissie. 


3o6  BIRTHRIGHT 

Peter  thought  and  thought,  resignedly  now,  but  per- 
sistently, how  this  strange  happiness  that  belonged  to 
them  both  could  be.  He  was  content,  yet  he  felt  he 
ought  not  to  be  content.  He  thought  there  must  be 
something  base  in  himself,  yet  he  felt  that  there  was  not. 
He  drank  the  wine  of  his  honeymoon  marveling. 

On  the  morning  before  the  Red  Cloud  entered  the 
port  of  Cairo  Mrs.  Higgman  was  out  of  the  cabin, 
and  Peter  stood  at  the  little  square  window,  wnth  his 
arm  about  Cissie's  waist,  looking  out  to  the  rear  of 
the  steamer.  A  strong  east  wind  blew  the  spray  away 
from  the  glass,  and  Peter  could  see  the  huge  wheel 
covered  with  a  waterfall  thundering  beneath  him. 
Back  of  the  wheel  stretched  a  long  row  of  even  waves 
and  troughs.  Every  seventh  or  eighth  wave  tumbled 
over  on  itself  in  a  swash  of  foam.  These  flashing 
stern  waves  strung  far  up  the  river.  On  each  side  of 
the  great  waterway  stretched  the  flat  shores  of  Ken- 
tucky and  Ohio.  Here  and  there  over  the  broad  clay- 
colored  water  moved  other  boats — tow-boats,  a  string 
of  government  auto-barges,  a  snag-boat,  another 
packet. 

Peter  gave  up  his  question.  The  curves  of  Cissie's 
form  in  his  arm  held  a  sweetness  and  a  rest  fulness  that 
her  maidenhood  had  never  promised.  He  felt  so 
deeply  sure  of  his  happiness  that  it  seemed  strange  to 
him  that  he  could  not  aline  his  emotions  and  his  mind. 

As  Peter  stood  staring  up  the  Ohio  River,  it  occurred 


BIRTHRIGHT  307 

to  him  that  perhaps,  in  some  queer  way,  the  morals  of  I 
black  folk  were  not  the  morals  of  white  folk;  perhaps- 
the  laws  that  bound  one  race  were  not  the  laws  that 
bound  the  other.  It  might  be  that  white  anathemai; 
were  black  blessings.  Peter  thought  along  this  lin<! 
peacefully  for  several  minutes. 

And  finally  he  concluded  that,  after  all,  morals  and 
conventions,  right  and  wrong,  are  merely  those  pre- 
cepts that  a  race  have  practised  and  found  good  in  its 
evolution.  Morals  are  the  training  rules  that  keep  a 
people  fit.  It  might  very  well  be  that  one  moral  regime 
is  applicable  to  one  race,  and  quite  another  to  another. 

The  single  object  of  all  morals  is  racial  welfare,  the 
racial  integrity,  the  breeding  of  strong  children  to  per- 
petuate 1;he  species.  If  the  black  race  possess  a  more 
exuberant  vitality  than  some  other  race,  then  the 
black  would  not  be  forced  to  practise  so  severe  a  vital 
economy  as  some  less  virile  folk.  Racial  morals  are 
simply  a  question  of  having  and  spending  within  safety 
limits. 

Peter  knew  that  for  years  white  men  had  held  a 
prejudice  against  marrying  widows.  This  is  utterly 
without  grounds  except  for  one  reason :  the  first  bom 
of  a  woman  is  the  lustiest.  Among  the  still  weaker 
Aryans  of  India  the  widows  burn  themselves.  Among 
certain  South  Sea  Islanders  only  the  first-born  may 
live  and  mate;  all  other  children  are  slain.  Among 
nearly  every  white  race  marriage  lines  are  strictly 
drawn,  and  the  tendency  is  to  have  few  children  to  a 


3o8  BIRTHRIGHT 

family,  to  conserve  the  precious  vital  impulse.  So 
strong  is  this  feeling  of  birth  control  that  to-day  nearly 
all  American  white  women  are  ashamed  of  large 
families.  This  shame  is  the  beginning  of  a  conven- 
tion ;  the  convention  may  harden  into  a  cult,  a  law,  or  a 
religion. 

And  here  is  the  amazing  part  of  morals.  Morals 
,.  are  always  directed  toward  one  particular  race,  but  the 
individual  members  of  that  race  always  feel  that  their 
brand  of  morals  does  and  should  apply  to  all  the  peoples 
of  the  earth ;  so'  one  has  the  spectacle  of  nations  send- 
ing out  missionaries  and  battle-ships  to  teach  and  en- 
force their  particular  folk-ways.  Another  queer  thing 
is  that  whereas  the  end  of  morals  is  designed  solely 
for  the  betterment  of  the  race,  and  is  entirely  regard- 
less of  the  person,  to  the  conscience  of  the  person 
morals  are  always  translated  as  something  that  binds 
him  personally,  that  will  shame  him  or  honor  him  per- 
sonally not  only  for  the  brief  span  of  this  worldly  life, 
but  through  an  eternity  to  come.  To  him,  his  particu- 
lar code,  surrounded  by  all  the  sanctions  of  custom, 
law,  and  religion,  appears  earth-embracing,  hell-deep, 
and  heaven-piercing,  and  any  human  creature  who  fol- 
lows any  other  code  appears  fatally  wicked,  utterly 
shameless,  and  ineluctably  lost. 

And  yet  there  is  no  such  thing  as  absolute  morals. 
Morals  are  as  transitory  as  the  sheen  on  a  blackbird's 
wing;  they  change  perpetually  with  the  necessities  of 
the  race.     Any  people  with  an  abounding  vitality  will 


BIRTHRIGHT  309 

naturally  practise  customs  which  a  less  vital  people 
must  shun. 

Morals  are  nothing  more  than  the  engines  controlling 
the  stream  of  energy  that  propel  a  race  on  its  course. 
All  engines  are  not  alike,  nor  are  all  races  bound  for 
the  same  port. 

Here  Peter  Siner  made  the  amazing  discovery  that 
although  he  had  spent  four  years  in  Harvard,  he  had 
come  out,  just  as  he  went  in,  a  negro. 

A  great  joy  came  over  him.  He  took  Cissie  whole- 
heartedly in  his  arms  and  kissed  again  and  again  the 
deep  crimson  of  her  lips.  His  brain  and  his  heart 
were  together  at  last.  As  he  stood  looking  out  at  the 
window,  pressing  Cissie  to  him,  he  wondered,  when  he 
reached  Chicago,  if  he  could  ever  make  Farquhar 
understand. 


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